Chris Nickson

Chris Nickson has written since he was a boy growing up in Leeds, starting with a three-paragraph school essay telling a tale of bomb disposal when he was 11. That brought the revelation that he enjoyed telling stories, and then more stories, teenage poetry, and music, as both a bassist and then a singer-songwriter-guitarist.

 

Chris spent 30 years living in the US, playing in bands and writing. He's made a living as a writer since 1994. Much of his work has been music journalism, combining the twin passions of music and writing, specialising in world and roots music. His reviews and features are published in print and online, notably with fRoots, Sing Out!, emusic.com, and allmusic.com. He's also the author of The NPR Casual Listener's Guide to World Music.

 

Chris has also published 28 other non-fiction books, most of them quicky biographies, and has had a pair of one act plays staged in Seattle. His short fiction has appeared in several small magazines, and most recently in the anthology Criminal Tendencies.

 

He moved back to the UK in 2005. The Broken Token was published by Creme de la Crime in 2010. The second of the Leeds novels featuring Richard Nottingham appeared in hardback in 2011 with the third and fourth (The Constant Lovers and Come the Fear) appearing in 2012. The fifth and sixth in the series (At the Dying of the Year and Fair and Tender Ladies) arrived in 2013.

 

The Crooked Spire is set in Chesterfield in 1361 and can be found in paperback and ebook. Gods of Gold is the first volume of a series set in Leeds in the 1890s and features Detective Inspector Tom Harper.

 

His new book Leeds, The Biography will be released by Armley Press in July 2015.