Clockwise to Titan

About Elon Dann

Elon Dann grew up in rural Lincolnshire, where his childhood was one of 'sensational boredom and ordinariness set against eye-strainingly wide fields of barley on which V-bombers cast triangular shadows'. Television educated him, although he did attend the local grammar school for appearance's sake. At eighteen he left Lincolnshire for Manchester, where he studied Physics and idolised Bertrand Russell and Kurt Vonnegut. After a spell of being an academic, Elon has worked in various IT jobs. He now lives with his wife and two children in Worcestershire. At the weekend he enjoys voluntary litter-picking, 'sifting through the cast-off waste of society like a lanky Womble'.

Clockwise to Titan is Elon's first book.

A Q&A with the Author....

What inspires your writing?

Boredom. It’s a very necessary and underrated condition. Boredom drives me towards toying with words and memories and assembling scenes and characters around them. It’s like a glacier, an unstoppable blank force that pushes all before it as it chisels out new landscapes and deposits erratic detritus over the terrain. Regrettably, together with a clear view of the night sky, boredom is a creative luxury that technology seems determined to eradicate.

What has been the most exciting moment of your career so far?

Reading over the first chapter I wrote and thinking, “What the bloody hell happens next?”

How did you first become an author?

During my day job I take a walk at lunchtime. To pass the time, I made up a story over many months based around the things I could see around me – the pylons, the fields. Eventually I dared myself to write it down.

What are you reading right now? Adrian McKinty’s “The Dead Yard”, “Lost Languages” by Andrew Robinson and “Prime Obsession” by John Derbyshire.

What was your earliest career aspiration? I used to watch Carl Sagan and Johnny Ball on the television, and my mum gave a name to what fascinated me – physics. That set the direction for all my school and university studies. This was a shame, because my work as a scientist stank like something recovered from a gravel pit by police divers.

What advice would you give to budding writers? As if I’m qualified...think of a person you know well and imagine them reading your work. Do what you can to make them turn the page, to enthral them.

What was your favourite childhood book? Jan Mark’s “Thunder and Lightnings”. It’s still in print.

Where is your favourite place to write? As long as I have ample room to pace about whilst thinking, anywhere reasonably quiet will do.

How do you read- print, digitally or both? I can see the benefits of digital books, but our house is strictly paper - if it weren’t for the bookshelves, I’d have to decorate.

Who do you most admire? Where to begin? Spike Milligan, Kurt Vonnegut, the Apollo astronauts, Karlo Stajner...

Are there any books you wish you had written? That’s like asking if there are any other lives I wish I’d lived. A great many, but then someone else would have to live mine, and they wouldn’t know where I’d put the car keys.