If one piece of author’s advice should be heeded by would-be writers, it’s that it pays to have a vivid imagination and some life experience to use as a basis for becoming a writer. The author is Lloyd Otis, whose debut crime thriller, Dead Lands, was published in October by Urbane Publications.
‘I definitely have a colourful and vivid imagination,’ admits Lloyd, from south-east London. ‘But the inspiration for Dead Lands was born out of an identity theft issue I experienced, with someone pretending to be me. For a while I had to battle with that issue, but in the end it became a police matter and that particular theme runs through the book.’