JP Harker

"I have been a borderline obsessive martial artist since my second week at UWN and still train in Traditional Jujutsu (Takamatsuden), as well as Modern Jujutsu and Karate whenever I can.

When not doing that, the equally cool hobby of painting wargames figures occupies my time (a plague upon Games Workshop for making things both so expensive and so awesome!). As if these were not enough to drive my long-suffering wife insane, I spend the rest of my time writing fantasy books!

While still at UWN and working in glamorous Hyper Value, a fellow student/shelf-stacker asked me to help him write some stories for a comic-book he was working on. It never came to anything in the end, but it was this that made me think that writing fiction might be something I could do well and really enjoy. Because of this I wasted a great deal of time at university trying to write books, doing very badly at it and finally giving up in disgust... then trying again a few years later... then giving up again... and so on for more rounds than I’m proud of.

Finally, in 2014, I decided to man up and wrote my first complete book, the first novel of the Oak Leaf Crown saga (which was of course, too long for a first-timer to publish!), followed shortly by what was supposed to be a quick novella... which became a novel... which became a series. Thus Wildcat and the Caledon books were born and I find myself with (at least) two series of books to work on. My wife is understandably delighted!"