Our first spotlight lands on the author of Mesmer, Faith in the Flesh and White: Tim Lebbon.

Apart from your writing, what else do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

When I do have spare time I use it to tend the dodos. Are you joking? Between working full time and being a Dad and a husband, any spare minute I get is spent reading or writing. Over the last year or two I've started to write more than I read (and by writing I mean the initial creative splurge, rewriting, researching, emailing and checking out new markets, printing and sending stories etc … the whole caboodle). I still love to read, but I buy books much faster than I can devour them. If I stopped buying now I'd have enough to last me five years! I live in a little village out in the sticks, and I love to walk in the countryside. I can't wait for the day when Ellie (my daughter) is old enough to come for a walk with me through the local woods … especially as there's a nice pub' just on the other side. I love nature. There's a huge power, a potential in the air in the country that you never feel in the city. Nature, and humankind's changing relationship with it, is a big influence in my writing as well. I'd like to say that I ride my bike, play squash and go swimming, but as I do these regularly once each year, that would be a bit of a cheat. I do love the cinema, though with a young daughter it's not so easy to find time to go. Apart from that I sleep and eat, and that's about it.

And have you had any achievements outside your successes in literature?

My daughter Eleanor. A greater achievement no man can aspire to. The moment she was born was simply stunning. People had tried to explain but you can't get it over in words. Marvellous! I'm not very sports-minded, but in my teens I enjoyed canoeing (speed racing, not white-water). If I'd carried on, my trainer thought I could have made the Commonwealth Games, but I was only doing it for a bit of fun. I paddled for Wales once in a home international gala. We came fourth. At sixteen I discovered booze and girls, and that was that. Other than that, not much. Beginners, Elementary and Intermediate swimming certificates, and I came first in the Egg and Spoon race in the village of Whimple's Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977. Never won anything since.

What was your first ever story about? And what was it like?!!!

I've been writing stories since I was a wee nipper, so I honestly can't recall the first one I ever dreamt up. When I was nine I wrote a tale in school about a train being hijacked, and one exquisite phrase¾obviously a foreshadow of my slightly slanted imagination¾leaps to mind: Luckily one of the hijackers had dropped his Magnum. I picked it up and pulled the trigger, and the back of his head exploded. Enid Blyton eat your heart out. When I was ten I started my first novel (a collaboration with a friend), and we progressed no further than the front cover. At the age of eleven I completed a 40,000 word novel that was a flagrant rip-off of Colin Forbes' Tramp in Armour. At thirteen I was writing cold war thrillers, though I knew nothing about war and even less about 'planes and ships and nuclear bombs and radio-watches. None of these texts survive today, which in a way is sad. In another way, though… The first story I wrote with a view to publication - I suppose the first one I ever wrote thinking, 'Hey, maybe I'd like to be a writer' - was called Black Heart, when I was about 20. A sick little puppy it was too, concerning an unrepentant bigot and how he met his comeuppance. It was about 10,000 words long, not bad for a first attempt, and I entered it for the Ian St James Awards. Needless to say it did not win. But still, it was my first complete story, and in many ways it hinted at the directions I'd take later on, in that there was a lot left unresolved. I don't like stories where everything is explained away. Too easy.

How and why did you get into Horror, and in your eyes, how has Horror progressed since you first became involved?

James Herbert's The Rats introduced me to horror at the age of eight, bless them. Scared the hell out of me! Saying that, some of the stuff I'd been reading up to then had elements of horror to it. I loved all the wonderful Willard Price Adventure books, and my favourites were always the more gruesome ones … Cannibal Adventure sticks bloodily in my mind. As to why I'm 'into' horror, who the hell can say? That's the big question, isn't it? I suppose I like reading and writing about extremes of behaviour and personality, and horror is often a genre of extremes. I also love Ramsey Campbell's answer to the perennial question: 'Why do you write horror?': Do you think I have any choice? Saying that I'm becoming more and more uncomfortable with the really sick stuff, the let's-write-about-taking-this-woman-apart-and-fucking-her-stumps stuff we still see a lot of, even today. There's nothing wrong with writing about violence, sickness, depravity and perversion, so