Jonathan Traynor. the 53-year-old Writer and Author from Belfast now lives in Ballymena.
He has left university in 1989 and started in journalism with the Ulster Gazette in Armagh, where he was able to do some freelance for the now-departed Ireland’s Saturday Night, Sunday Life and a few others.
The combination of news reporting, sports reporting and longer-form features gave Jonathan a taste for the power of the written word.
What genre / style do you create in?
My fiction writing veers around fantasy, horror and some sci-fi. My first book, Watching The Watched contained an eclectic mixture of those. My third book is underway. The second book published and still available is a completely different matter. Entitled Zero Fucks Given it is a series of extended rants, praise for beer and tales of misadventures as a music fan.
What would you be best known for?
Hanging around gigs, getting drunk at music festivals but still turning in a shift when needed.
What would you consider your biggest achievement?
Still alive at almost 54 with two books out, another to come and having a reasonable work-life balance.
What would you consider to be the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your industry?
Do it your way. There are some rules, such as grammar, but as for the rest: plough your own furrow.
What has been your biggest challenge to date?
The days when you have zero energy, blood sugars low – and still needing deadlines kept.
Tell us a little about your personal life, are you married, kids, hobbies etc?
Two grown-up children, one dog, and an unhealthy addiction to really heavy music
Tell us about your most recent work?
Zero Fucks Given: An Anti-Health and Wellbeing journal of how to live a stress-free life – or something like that. As one reader commented ‘It’s bloody mad, hilarious, but mad’
What would you like us to tell people about?
Very simple – buy my books
If you had to describe your work to someone who has never heard of you what would you say?
Fiction: intriguing. Non-fiction: unhinged
What’s the funniest experience you’ve had in your business?
Too many to mention without incriminating myself, the innocent and the ugly. However, one that sticks in my mind is an unnamed journalist I worked with asking, in an interview, a Catholic archbishop “so was your father a priest too?”
What would your advice be to young people hoping to pursue the same industry?
Read. As Stephen King advises in his book On Writing if you want to write read a lot. You can learn from the good, aspire to be great, be better than the bad.
Anything else you want to tell people about yourself or your work?
Most of my time is spent writing for commercial outlets (earning beer tokens), but there is a time and place and lose oneself in your imagination and hope you get the chance to share with others
Who do you look up to and why?
Jurgen Klopp – I shouldn’t need to explain why. Stephen King – still producing quality after all these years. Sir David Attenborough – scientific eloquence.
If you would like to keep up with Jonathan, you can find him on Twitter or on Facebook! Zero F*@ks Given, published by Excalibur Press is available excaliburpress.co.uk, Watching The Watched: …and more tales from the other side is available from Amazon.co.uk.