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Last updated: 01/12/2022 (Picaresque goings on added.)

IN SHORT.

How many jobs should an author have? I only ask because I've had many. You may, of course, consider my looooong CV as proof of a varied and interesting journey, or proof of a feckless and aimless life. Regardless, every writer has one bitter irony or twelve driving them on. Writing is a long fight against one's own worst habits, gate-keepers, and the horrible, nagging feeling you're a bit crap.

I wanted to be a paleontologist.

Instead, I ended up doing a wide range of things, from data entry on the ill-fated NHS Database to lecturing and postdoctoral research. Other jobs had included working in a mortuary, supporting the disabled, writing reports on the pub and bar trade, web editing and multimedia, music journalism...

All very unexciting? I don't mind unexciting. Unexciting is fine, as long as you have an imagination. But one thing my working life has taught me is this - when we work for others, we are at their mercy. And by Hastur's Ochre Left Gonad, there are a lot of [11th Century English Kings That Tried To Turn Back The Tide] in management. But I digress.

It's been a journey of sorts, a really depressing one in a vomit splattered, stale-tobacco stinking Ford Mondeo, driven by a blindfolded, rabid gorrilla. But such material! All human life is where the monsters of this world dwell, and writers are sucked into it, like a black hole. I am blessed.

I still want to be a paleontologist.

JOURNO SAMPLES:

SELECTED ACADEMIC OUTPUTS NO ONE IS EVER GOING TO CITE. BASTARDS:

Hay, A. (2016). A Man of Many Depths – Hugh Miller and The Cruise of the Betsey. Scottish Literary Review 8(2), pp. 73-91. [LINK]
Hay, A. (2017). News of the duels: Restoration duelling culture and the early modern press. Martial Arts Studies 3, pp. 89-101. [LINK]
Hay, A. (2018) ‘From Beneath The Waves’ – Sea-Draugr and the popular conscience’. In: Hackett, J. and Harrington, S. (eds.) Beasts of the Deep: Sea Creatures & Popular Culture. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. pp. 11-26. [LINK]
Hay, A. (2018) Phew! What A Blizzard!’ -- Black Metal & The UK Popular Press. Metal Music Studies, 4(2), pp. 329-341 [LINK]
Hay, A. (2020) Towns that go bump in the night' - haunted urbanity and ghostly narratives. Supernatural Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Art, Media, and Culture, 6 (2), pp. 59-83 [LINK]