Paul Clark
I was born in the Forest of Dean in south-west England, the son of teachers, and grew up in Coventry and Manchester. I graduated in history and became a teacher of English as a foreign language, mostly out of a desire to see the world.
My career took me to more than 20 countries in five continents, including four years living in Italy and Thailand, and I worked with people from more than 80 countries. This included work as a teacher, a teacher trainer, a published materials writer, an academic manager and a manager. I eventually became co-owner of a language school.
I downshifted just before the pandemic in order to spend more time writing, though I still do some teaching and work as a Humanists UK school speaker.
I started writing seriously around the turn of the century. My first novel was set in an imaginary Soviet republic during and after the last decade of communist rule. It grew out of a lifelong fascination with communism and horror at the bloody chaos that followed its collapse in Yugoslavia and the South Caucasus. My late agent was full of praise for the book but said it was too long. Rather than cut it, he suggested I expand it into two novels. Eventually it became a trilogy: The Ruslan Shanidza Novels.
I sent an unsolicited copy of the second book to journalist and broadcaster Neal Ascherson, an expert on Easter Europe. He wrote back asking, “What is your background? How did you get such a feel for the region?” I felt that I must have got something right with all my research.
My next novel, The Omega Course, is a novel I have always wanted to write. It combines fiction and non-fiction in the style of two of my favourite books, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Sophie’s World, though rather than philosophy, my theme is what modern secular scholarship says about the origins of Christianity and the Bible. It took me a long time to find a way into the story, but an incident where a rather reckless driver might have hit me had I not looked in my rear-view mirror provided inspiration.
For the most part, my blog explores religious issues from a non-rabid atheist point of view.
I live with my wife in Sussex. We have two grown-up children and three grandchildren.
You can find my author page on Facebook or follow me on Twitter (I refuse to call it X) and BlueSky, if that’s your thing.
Paul Clark 