An Interview with Danny Radford
My name is Danny, from Kingston upon Hull. I work on the gas rigs and have an amazing daughter. My writing comes from a love of movies and classic books like H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, and George Orwell.
What inspired you to start writing this book?
Way back when, I would read a lot of fiction, ‘airport novels,’ and time after time I would be hit with two thoughts. Firstly, I wonder if I could do this? And secondly, If I do, I don’t want the endings to be as predictable. So I set about writing; several ‘beginnings’ at first and then eventually rolled with Prison of the Mind and all its darkness.
Tell us the story of your book’s current title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?
I released it a long time ago, self-published, and the reception was good. Unfortunately, at the time I didn’t know I had dyslexia (always thought I was just rubbish at spelling), so it always felt like an uncut diamond. Something special to me, but you wouldn’t want to walk around with it. Then, when tools became available to rectify my grammatical misgivings, it came out for a second time and seems to have really been received well.
If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?
I always write with music playing. This book had a very serious soundtrack steeped into the background. From Massive Attack to The National. A little bit of the whole from the soundtrack of McVicar.
The book is seething with British grit, so anything that fell into the category of moody Brit music also became part of the fabric.
What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?
I work on the rigs (my next book is a fiction book based on this), but as it was recently described, I seem to end up doing a lot of “side quests”. I was an extra in Gladiator 2, and was in the series Bodies on Netflix. I’ve climbed Kilimanjaro, skydived several times, and competed in a white collar boxing fight. I’m a very “why not?” type of person and this often leaves me either in trouble or in adventure.
Where is your favorite place to write?
On my bed with headphones on. Totally abstracted from the rest of the world.
What advice would you give your past self at the start of your writing journey?
Just do it and do as much as you like. AI will render most books obsolete in the future, but will never surpass creativity. So if you have it, do it.
What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?
The endings. When you thought you knew the outcome, something wakes you up and makes you want to flick back through the book to find the clues that were always there.
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