Mark Eklid

I am a career journalist, joining the South Yorkshire Times as a trainee reporter in 1984 and moving on three years later to the sports desk of the Derby Telegraph, where I have been ever since. Most of that time in Derby has been as the newspaper’s cricket writer, a role that brought national recognition in the 2013 England and Wales Cricket Board awards. I have also been a contributor for the last nine years to the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack and have had many articles published in national magazines, annuals and newspapers. Writing as a profession meant writing for pleasure was largely left on the back burner but changed priorities at work made it possible - essential, even - to pick up the threads of one of the many half-formed novels in my computer files and, this time, see it through to publication. Sunbeam was the result but it was never the intention to stop there. Family Business was well on the way by the time Sunbeam was published and a third novel, possibly the start of a series, is already well into the planning stage. I was born in Sheffield, the city I used as the backdrop for Sunbeam, and have lived in Derby since 1988 with my partner, Sue. We have two sons.