He attended City College Norwich sixth form[3] and then studied for a degree in Media Technology and Production at Bradford University.

In his final year there he contributed a series entitled "Cinema 100" to the anthology Five Uneasy Pieces (Pulp Faction).

[5] If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things went on to win the Betty Trask Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award, among other honours.

[citation needed] His influences include Alice Munro, Douglas Coupland, Raymond Carver, Richard Brautigan and Charles Simic.

The prize's judging panel, which included the British novelist Tim Parks and the Trinidadian writer Elizabeth Nunez, described Even the Dogs, a novel detailing the highs and lows of drug addiction, as a "fearless experiment".