I was born in 1957 in Droylsden, near Manchester. Definitely not the sort of place to grow up artistic and I led a classic writer's childhood, in the sense that I created my own inner world. I studied Painting and Drama at Manchester University, but only after a few years working at various things, trying to find a way to break through.

I took a job at Waterstone's in Manchester and ended up working there for five years - surrounded by books but I didn't think that much about writing one myself. Until the Assistant Manager (who was starting his own publishing company) asked me to have a go at writing a novel.

So I went home that night and starting writing: 'Mandy came out of the all-night Vurt-U-Want, clutching a bag of goodies.' The company became Ringpull Press, the book became Vurt, and the next thing I knew it had won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. I guess all those years of living inside my own head finally paid off.

Needle in the Groove

'As exciting as drugs and music' Maxim

'Brilliant…lush, loose, rhythmic prose which stutters and jumps, screeches and splinters all over the page…Needle in the Groove offers a brilliant understanding of dance culture' City Life

'Needle in the Groove is where the mainstream of literature ought to be in the 21st century…seething, sexualised, chemically enhanced' The Wire

Pixel Juice

'Noon is the Lewis Carroll of Manchester's housing estates…the cocktail of alienation, narcotics and gadgetry fizzes with energy' The Times

'Sparky and loopy, laced with puns and black wit...for Noon, brilliantly, tomorrow is a blow to the head' Mail on Sunday

'Noon reflects the energy of the rave generation: the hammer and twist of the music, the language of the computer games addict and the buzz of technology' New Statesman

Automated Alice

'Borges crossed with Philip Larkin on acid' Arena

'Destined for cult status…Cyberpunk at the cutting edge' Maxim

'A wild psychedelic vision…' Manchester Evening News

Nymphomation

'Sparky and loopy, laced with puns and black wit… For Noon, brilliantly, tomorrow is a blow to the head' Mail on Sunday

'The bizarrely logical world [Noon] creates with its touches of Orwellian satire and William Gibson-esque cybervision is truly original' Q Magazine

'Noon reflects the energy of the rave generation: the hammer and the twist of the music, the language of the computer games addict and the buzz of technology' New Statesman

'An exquisitely grimy fable which plunges us into the world of club culture, smart drugs, dumb waiters, artificial life forms and a national lottery from hell' Independent

'A work of genuinely modern fiction…dark and edgy' The Face