Tim Bowler is one of the UK’s most compelling and original writers for teenagers. He was born in Leigh-on-Sea and after studying Swedish at University, he worked in forestry, the timber trade, teaching and translating before becoming a full-time writer. Tim’s stories are deep, mystical and scary, yet at the same time lyrical, intense and profoundly moving. They ask big questions and take the reader on a journey that is never quite what it seems. He has written since the age of five.
Tim once said, ‘I’m passionate about stories. They’re strange, magical things and they work upon us like alchemy. The great stories in our cultures travel with us through life. They become part of our spiritual bloodstream. They move us, entertain us, shock us, transform us. I love writing about teenagers. They’re so complex, mysterious and fascinating. They’re not children or adults but a species all their own with more voices in their heads than a choir. Writing about teenagers involves remembering one’s own younger voices and listening for them again.
‘I’ve written stories since I was a boy. I’m a storyaholic. I believe in the power of stories to move us, entertain us and transform us. To me, writing is as much about listening as it is about putting down words. It starts with a whisper, a silent sound that flickers in the dark, then gradually, as you go on listening, you realise that the whisper has turned into an idea, and the idea into an obsession, and suddenly there are words on the page, and characters and settings, and the plot is bubbling around them like white water.
‘Some people think there must be a set of rules for writing but the truth is there aren’t any. It’s more like tickling trout, holding your hand out and trying to coax the ideas to swim into your grasp; or being a potter, throwing the rough clay of your thoughts down and letting the story twist out under the palms of your hands; or being a sorcerer, stirring the cauldron of your imagination and watching the vapour of the story rise. Writing is all these things and many more. It’s something you never bottom, never crack, never stop learning about. And that’s why I love it.’
