Brian Holley

I describe myself as a 'spiritual tramp and religious has-been', which may seem a strange label of an author of spiritual books to say. But, although I mix with a number of eclectic groups, and am committed to two, I simply don't wear any labels. Even so, when 'What my Doctors Didn't Tell me About Cancer' was accepted by a publisher I was expecting it to appear in the 'mind and body' category. Imagine my surprise when it was taken up by the spiritual publishing imprint, O Books. And I guess that's about right. My message is one of hope, as I'd like to think all my books are. But 'What my Doctors Didn't Tell me About Cancer' seems to have struck a chord with the people who have read it and the one word that comes out again and again is hope.

My life has often been turbulent. Six years in the army, several redundancies, bringing up four children and a divorce made sure of that, but looking back over the years I seem to have been on a journey which has led me to a place of peace. Over the last 17 years, including my 15 year journey with cancer has been perhaps the richest time in my life. I published my first book, 'From the Secret Cave' in 2012. It was written while convalescing from an operation to remove my left adrenal gland. The book was derived from entries in my journal which I had been keeping from 2008. In writing it, I found a distinctive new voice and the lyrical prose simply pour out on the pages.

Then came 'The God I Left Behind', which is an autobiographical work in which I deconstructed my former fundamentalist evangelical Christian faith. Since the early 80s I had been writing poetry. I was chair of poetry group in Cheltenham at one time and we performed at the Cheltenham Festival. Now I have a collection of work to publish called 'Looking Out, Looking In', which hope will be released before the end of 2024. I also have a spiritual novel waiting it's final edit. Early in 2024 I published 'Spirit of the Upanishads', which was a most demanding and interesting project. I believe it expresses the key understandings that have opened to me over the years in a more accurate and well founded way than ever before.

My cancer has taught me how to integrate bodily, psychic and emotional aspects of my being. Perhaps that has been expressed as best I can, at this stage anyway, in 'What my Doctors Didn't Tell me About Cancer'. Perhaps that's why the book, although written initially from a bodily point of view, turned into something much more than that.