Though Steve is a noted musician and poet, he is most widely known for his travel writing - he circles the globe on an almost yearly basis (it seems!), producing hundreds of pithy, punchy reports around the 1500 word mark, which have been published by the likes of Time Out and the Guardian. As Steve discussed on the radio, travel writing is many people's idea of perfect job...cruising round the globe, jotting up a few notes, expanding your mind...though at some point you do need to come down to earth (in Steve's case, Yorkshire) and sell your wares.
Steve had a three-book deal with a larger publisher, which was scuppered by the recession/arts cuts (which you can read about elsewhere, endlessly) which allowed me to 'snap him up' (so to speak) a couple of months back. He's actually written five books, one for each of his trips - Pulse is the latest, telling the story of his 2010 trip through India, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia,
inspired by (in his words) 'a midlife crisis' (if indeed you can have one at thirty.) He left these countries until last because he was worried they wouldn't live up to his expectations, especially India, but (as you'll see when you read it) he wasn't disappointed.
His biggest influence is Jack Kerouac, and something about his free-wheelin', philosophical approach (or people's general obsession with Kerouac!) leads him to be compared to Jack almost every time he is reviewed - one reviewer from US magazine Traveller's Digest suggested Kerouac would be 'grinning in his grave' if he could read Steve's writing. I get the impression Steve would rather be seen as a Michael Palin figure (post-Python!), offering a reasonable, eloquent and non-judgemental view of the wider world - maybe a combination of both. Anyway, now you've been introduced, look out for more info on Steve and the book in the months to come; you're going to absolutely love it.
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