[4] Paul Harding grew up on the north shore of Boston in the town of Wenham, Massachusetts.
[8] After graduating from the University of Massachusetts, he spent time touring with his band Cold Water Flat in the US and Europe.
He had always been a heavy reader, and recalls reading Carlos Fuentes' Terra Nostra and thinking "this is what I want to do".
When he next had time off from touring with the band he signed up for a summer writing class at Skidmore College in New York.
he realized some of the people he admired most were "profoundly religious", so he spent years reading theology, and was "deeply" influenced by Karl Barth and John Calvin.