Rick Tucker

I worked for years as a nurse in secure mental health services and then as a policy lead in government departments, so that was my career of sorts, but not one that ever defined me. My first love was poetry, which I also write, and then comes the rest: writing in any format, painting, reading and playing music - I play guitar and blues harmonica and used to play in bands back in the day. Other than that football and cricket are passions to a degree.

Much of what I write comes from personal experience - not just in terms of where I have worked or travelled, although they have influenced the way I look at the world a great deal, but also in terms of what I have learned from observing people and the relationships they are in with other human beings in so many different and varying contexts. I understand the frailty of human beings and have had my fair share of personal challenges over the years, so that's what I like to write about - how we interact with the world around us and the people who are in it and how that affects our own individual internal dialogues. Whether it's love or money or addictions or adrenalin or faith - whatever it is we expend our energy on in trying to achieve - we all remain vulnerable to the unpredictability of life. How we react to that determines much of who we are. The ties that bind us are gossamer thin.

My second novel, Under the Flamboyant Tree, is now available for pre-order.