From the small town of Pontypool, to being one of the select few chosen for a prestigious writing workshop in Liverpool this 23-year-olds mission to excel as an author is filled with excitement, hard work, and a relentless determination that many can only dream of. Jack Strange spoke to LEAH POWELL about his journey.

I am 23-years-old and grew up in Pontypool. I’ve wanted to be a professional writer ever since I was in primary school. I was always writing as a kid and was inspired when I found out people can actually write books for a living.

It’s been a crazy journey, involving production companies, self-publishing and writing workshops, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Let’s take it back to 2015, which is when I published my first book.

I was working as an editor for Horse & Country TV, and had been since 2013. 2015 is also the year I launched an independent video production company, Brother Hipster Productions Ltd (although it is currently being re-branded as Strange Productions Ltd).

The company is based in Caerleon House in Pontypool, and has attracted many clients over the years, including NHS Wales, Torfaen Council, and Cwmbran Shopping, to name a few. The company’s production ‘Animal Sanctuary Cwmbran’ was even nominated for ‘Best factual’ in the 2016 Cardiff Mini Film Festival.

Although I enjoy photography and videography, my true passion is writing, especially crime and horror. I grew up on horror books, particularly the Point Horror Books which were written by various American authors, including R. L. Stine who also wrote the Goosebumps series. My favourite stories in the Point Horror Books were The Babysitter series, which I really liked.

I’m also a big fan of fantasy, and J.K. Rowling is undoubtedly my favourite author. The Harry Potter series were the first ‘proper’ books I read, and inspired my love of literature, reading, and writing. I’m sure there are many others with this deep love for this spell-binding series.

Based on this love of writing I self-published my first novel, London’s Burning, which is available on Amazon, as a paperback and on Kindle. It was my debut novel, focused on the survival of a 17-year-old socialite, called Winter Smith, during a zombie apocalypse. Even though it was self-published I felt extremely proud to be able to hold a physical copy of the book, after about four years of writing. Self-publishing can be hard because you’re doing everything yourself, meaning you’re a one-man band. Writing the book is just one step. You then need to edit, get the cover designed, market it, promote it, produce business cards and flyers, and so on.

Two years on, I self-published the sequel, The Secrets of France. Both books are under the name J.S. Strange, as there is already a writer using the name ‘Jack Strange’ and I wanted to avoid confusion. The Winter Smith series was intended to be a trilogy, but lately I’m not sure. I’ve hit a wall with the third one, but I’m hoping to do it eventually.

I had been working on a modern re-telling of Medusa, intended to be published in January next year, along with the launch of Aquarius Books. Aquarius Books was going to be an imprint of Noctis Books, which was based in London, meaning there’d also be a base in Wales. I’d written about 30,000 words for it when a few weeks back I got an email telling me that Noctis Books has gone into liquidation, so are ceasing trading. I think it was a bit of a scandal, with something happening behind the scenes, so there’s no plans for the Medusa novel now. I might come back to it another time, but it isn’t top of my agenda right now.

Instead I am focusing on what I hope will be a series of crime novels, based in Cardiff, revolving around a gay detective called Jordan Jenner. Following advice from J.K. Rowling on Twitter to never title a book until finishing the last page I decided just to start writing it. Halfway through the title ‘Murder on the Rocks’ came to me, but this could change. I’ve spoken to an independent publisher, who said it seemed ‘cosy mystery.’ Although that’s not a bad thing, it wasn’t my intention. Ideally, I want it to be a crime novel.

It was this story which got me a place on a WriteNow workshop, hosted by Penguin Random House UK. WriteNow aims to mentor writers from communities that are underrepresented and publish books that reflect everyone in our society. They had 1700 people from throughout the UK send them 1000 words, which was shortlisted to 150 people who got to attend one of three workshops. There was one in London earlier in the month, the one I attended in Liverpool on September 15, and one that is coming up in Nottingham.

I sent them 1000 words from my Jordan Jenner Novel, they requested a further 5000 words, and I was selected as one of the 50 to go to their Liverpool workshop. It was a definitely valuable experience, which inspired me and made me feel better about my writing. I felt really validated just to get shortlisted and sitting down with an editor from Penguin was incredible. To sit down and discuss the novel and hear feedback on my writing from someone who knows a great deal about crime fiction was amazing. He said he really enjoyed my story and it had a good base and plot, with lots of potential for a crime novel. That was great to hear.

I’ll find out next month whether I’ve been shortlisted again. If this happens I’ll have to send them a full manuscript for the first story in the Jordan Jenner series. They’ll then select ten people to take part in a mentoring programme. Hopefully they’ll request it, but it is a big jump from 150 people to just ten, so the chances are slim. I’ll definitely stay on it, and at the very least I can include the experience on my CV.

So, what does the future hold for me?

I’ll keep working on the Jordan Jenner series, although I’m not sure how many books will be included. I’ll just keep writing, taking it as it comes, and following up on ideas. In an ideal world it would be like Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels that just keep coming out. I’m hoping to get it approved by a publisher, but if that fails I’ll go down the self-publishing route again.

I’m currently working as a multi skilled technical operator for BBC Cymru Wales, but I’m also due to start studying English Literature and Creative Writing, at Open University, next month. My English education in school wasn’t necessarily the best, as I was put in a class that could achieve a C grade at the highest. I’m hoping that this course, along with the feedback from the WriteNow workshop, will help me further improve my writing.