Backstory
Sam grew up in the perilous Wiltshire countryside of England, then scribbled his way to a First Class Honours degree in English Literature from Queen Mary, University of London. His dissertation specialised in Victorian Gothic monstrosity, kicking off an interest that would later inspire his first book, Escape Castle Dracula (Big Picture Press, 2024).
He then worked his way up from an internship to being an in-house writer and editor for publishers including Eris Press, Marginalia, Templar Books, and Big Picture Press, covering all corners on adult and children’s publishing from European politics to picture books, YA fiction to puppets, and cartoon adaptations to high art theory. He’s written about eight tie-ins for the Gigantosaurus publishing range through Bonnier Books UK and CyberGroup Studios.
In 2021, he voyaged north to undertake an MSc in Intermediality at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated with a Distinction. His dissertation analysed cross-media adaptation from comics to film to videogames, using DC’s ‘Batman’ as a case-study for constructing modern franchise mythologies.
He’s just wrapped work on his latest book, Where the Dead Live (Templar Books, September 2025). A non-fiction globe-trotting walk among the tombstones, Where the Dead Live explores the thriving community of the dead, from festivals to archaeological digs, through tombs and catacombs, to realms of myth and ghostly goings-on.
Editorially, Sam works across fiction and non-fiction from unpublished writers and acclaimed authors, tabletop games companies, small and large publishing houses, and other commercial clients. He’d love to hear about your project.
But what else can sam do?
Events!
Look at me, proving to the kind folks of Toppings & Co. that not only can I write a book: I can also write my own full name in that very same book!
If you’d like to see me write my name in my books where you are, do get in touch at my Contact page. Furthermore, beyond my capacity to talk at exhausting length about myself to audiences both wakeful and sleepy, I do love to interview folks about their work and help launch their books at places where that kind of thing happens.
So whether you’d like a personal ramble, an event chairing, or a general authorial/editorial dogsbody, I am at present portable and willing to leave my usual writing chair in Argonaut Books (Edinburgh) and voyage into the unknown.
Journal
Honestly, by now you know roughly what I’m about, so much of what you’d expect from a blog by me can be found in the blog linked below. Have a read! One of the posts is about Godzilla…
Services
My editorial services run the gamut of children’s and adult fiction, non-fiction, novelty, poetry, and dinosaur puppet books. Don’t underestimate that last one: the number of prototypes I had to wrangle from my dog’s jaws…
Anyhow, for specific services, check out my editorial page.