Profile: brian humphreys

About This Author

I began writing when I was six years old. I can still remember the painful thick ear for crayoning on Mum’s newly-hung wallpaper. From that day, I’ve always had a pen and paper close at hand. My creative skills were polished doing self-employed self-assessment tax returns (and if you are reading this and work for the Inland Revenue, I’m only kidding). I became serious about writing in 2009 and in 2010. After failing to find a writer’s group to join, I started my own called Wordsmiths of Weston (WOW), now six years old and still going strong. I entered the Somerset Short Story Competition (SSSC) in 2011 and ‘Don’t Be Daft,Grandad’ made the shortlist. In the 2012 SSSC, I entered ‘Mustn’t Grumble’ and it came third. In the 2013 SSSC, I entered ‘Press Any Key’ and it came second, and ‘Blood Money’ was highly commended. Having finished third and second, my rise to the top of the SSSC was thwarted when in 2014, ‘It’s Time to Roll the Dice’ was commended, and ‘Searching for Mrs Right’ shortlisted. My other two entries, ‘Paula’s Game’ and ‘Angus’s Second Honeymoon’ (which I considered stronger), failed to even make the shortlist. In 2013, I won a one-act play competition at the Theatre in the Hut with ‘The Birds and the Bees’ and came third with ‘Neighbourhood Watch’, and in the 2013 Homestart Bridgwater International Short Story Competition my entry ‘Saving Private Ryan’ made the final shortlist of ten. In 2016, ‘I Demand a Refund’ was one of twelve monologues chosen to be performed live by the Show of Strength theatre group. Writing is now in my blood. Some days I get dressed and some days I don’t, but one thing’s for certain: I’ll be writing. Included in Fifty Shades of Somerset is a story in which all the words begin with the letter ‘s’, and three shape poems as I stretch my boundaries. Some people are compulsive readers, and as a writer, I feel it is my duty to feed their addiction. I hope you enjoy reading these books as much as I have enjoyed writing them.