Growing up in London in the 1960s, an exciting time and place to be a teenager, my passions were books and music. I always wanted to be a writer, but was diverted into writing music rather than books.
After completing a B.A. in philosophy and creative writing, I studied electronic music at the Royal College of Music, played keyboards in various bands and theatre companies (including Monstrous Regiment, a seminal British feminist company), and composed music for TV and radio, working at the BBC’s renowned Radiophonic Workshop (and winning two Sony Awards for The Most Creative Use of Radio).
In 2007, I retired from the media music business and downshifted to Tenerife, to focus on writing (initially, travel articles for magazines, a column in a local paper, and short stories).
Since then I’ve published three books: Nobody’s Poodle, a novella narrated by an abandoned dog (included in the Guardian’s Top 50 Readers’ recommended self-published authors); Somebody’s Doodle, a canine cozy mystery (highly commended in the 2020 Page Turner Awards); and Too Close to the Wind, a travel adventure, philosophical thriller, and the world’s first windsurfing novel.
My current novel was inspired by the decades I spent as a professional musician and composer. The Rhythm of Time interweaves the stories of three musicians in 18th, 20th, and 23rd century London. As their parallel timelines unfold, we discover how music shapes their lives and what links them: a lost composer, erased from history when her manipulative husband appropriates her work; the quest to reclaim her stolen compositions; a 1970s cult hit warning of a world without music; and an epic struggle with a Big Brother-esque AI regime to make music in a soulless world where it’s been outlawed for a century.
Early drafts of the opening chapters were long-listed for the Bridport, Yeovil, and Cinnamon Press Novel Prizes, chosen as “notable” in the Gutsy Chapter One Prize, won an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest, and received encouraging reviews from my ACR (advanced copy) readers.
My stories have won third prize in the Lorian Hemingway contest, Judges’ Choice in the Hammond House International Literary Prize, been short listed for the Write By The Sea Flash Fiction contest, and received honourable mentions in the Writer’s Digest Annual Writing competition, Cutthroat magazine’s story contest, and the Next Generation Short Story Awards.
I’m very fortunate to “live my dream” (to use the jargon of reality TV), here in las Islas Afortunadas (the “Fortunate Islands”, as the Canaries are called). Stories, characters, ideas and words are my obsession, and my motto is: Keep Scribbling—and write the story only YOU can write.
Richard Attree 