Ian was born and raised in Northumberland, only leaving when he was lured down south to study Economics at the University of Wolverhampton. He was so impressed with the place that he stayed in the Midlands to teach at a number of colleges and universities. When not teaching he wrote stories or rode one of his three motorbikes with the odd Glastonbury Festival thrown in. Moving north to Lancaster he took an MA in Creative Writing at St Martin's College before completing a PhD at Lancaster University. This was when he developed the idea of the Northumbrian Westerns. He also began reading more seriously: Cormac McCarthy, Tim O'Brien and Dashiell Hammett showed him how stories could be told in different ways. He's had a play performed, won a (small) poetry competition and had short stories published. He now lives on the edge of the English Lake District, still teaching and writing but the motorbikes have been replaced by three children.