AUTHOR

Every universe is formed out of nothing. There was no big bang at the beginning of the TotenUniverse, just one individual, Chris Harrison, with a ton of ideas and an out of control imagination.

The Wordy Overview

I worry about perception and appearances. I often buy stuff because of the packaging design. I judge books by their covers. It took me ages to choose an author photograph because I don’t get my hair cut very often and it usually looks a mess.

But you don’t want to know any of that, do you? You’re interested in where I live; is it a farmhouse or some remote croft, am I surrounded by cats or own a dog with a glass eye. What’s my USP, what sets me apart from other authors?

Have you ever noticed how authors always have some interesting life background? They were brought up in Namibia or their mother was the Earl of Chichester or they lost all their fingers at the age of twelve after being attacked by a caiman on their Peruvian plantation. Agents and publishers look for this kind of thing, a hook for the marketing department.

Unfortunately, I’ve still got all my fingers (I’m using some of them now to type this), I don’t have a title and the farthest I’ve been away from England is Montserrat. Near Barcelona, not the other one.

My resume is a blank sheet of paper with my name at the top. My upbringing suburban, my world distinctly average.

However….

I don’t write about my world, I write about the world inside my head. Swishing around the synapses is a world of witchcraft, of supernatural events and occult happenings, a world echoing to music rebounding around canyons and deflecting off mountain summits. It’s inhabited by weirdos and nutters, the wretched and the wonderful. A world seething with ambition and conflict, a quantum puzzle and permanent conspiracy.

What makes me is not what you see on the outside, but what’s churning around on the inside. And I think you’d rather read about that, wouldn’t you?

author with susan bekker
The Bare Facts

Author name: Chris Harrison

Born and raised: Lancashire, England

Favourite novel: Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco)

Music: Children of Bodom, Blutengel, Unheilig, Nightwish, Delain, metal, trance, classical, Burt Bacharach

Favourite films: Amadeus, The Brotherhood of the Wolf, The Italian Job

Actors I enjoy: Antje Traue, Fabrice Luchini, Virginie Ledoyen, F Murray Abraham, Stanley Tucci, Michael Caine, Ishaa Koppikar, Daniel Auteuil

Figures I admire: Carl Sagan, Johan Cruyff, Eric Morecambe (hang on, they’re all dead), Michael Woods

Things I like: mountains, canals, crisps (potato chips), walking, Pagani Zondas and flat empty landscapes

That should be enough to steal my identity.