Jamie McGarry was born in Norwich in April 1988. Moving to North Wales in the early 90's, he was writing and illustrating books by the age of five - the first example being an alternative version of 'The Gingerbread Man', where a turtle made of jelly came to life. The turtle was chased and eaten by a fox, but the fox's teeth fell out due to the high sugar content of the jelly. The book's final page showed the fox attending the dentist.
Moving to Driffield in 2001, Jamie met with his first writing success, winning the East Yorkshire Poetry Competition (13-18 category), despite having only been an East Yorkshire resident (and 13!) for four months. Something of a restless soul, Jamie began pursuing many other projects; he appeared on the TV programme Robot Wars (viewable here), he created a short-lived animated cartoon series on the web, and he ran an award-winning website for simple online games, all before taking his GCSE's.
Before starting university in 2006, Jamie had written and illustrated one of the UK's most popular webcomics, 'Built for Comfort,' as well as being one-half of the team behind a podcast with the same name - a special episode of which (running a mind-boggling twenty-four hours in length) was the longest podcast ever recorded at the time. He is also behind the 'official unofficial' website for popular band Prefab Sprout, widely regarded as one of the best band websites in existence (and viewable here.)
Attending university in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Jamie initially took a course in 'Primary Teaching', fulfilling a long-held dream regarding his future career. However, after failing his second-year placement quite thoroughly ('they know less now than they did before you arrived,' he was told), he was moved onto the English Literature course, which he is in the final term of as we speak.
With the door to a serious career temporarily closed, Jamie redoubled his efforts on the writing front, winning the Scarborough Literature Festival poetry slam in 2008, as well as having his poem 'Solitary' (a tribute to Yorkshire celebrity Hannah Hauxwell) published in the Dalesman magazine. 2008 also saw the publication of his first collection of poetry, What Do I Know Anyway?, as well as the re-release of his 2007 novel The Waiting Game, both of which sold in modest numbers to some positive reviews (including this one for the poetry.)
In the same year, he became a member of respected poetry group 'The Scarborough Poetry Workshop', and performs with them at Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre regularly. (He was made chairman of the group in January 2010.) He has had several articles published in the 'Driffield Leader' magazine, and a few articles and poems have appeared in other local publications. In 2009, he set up the publishing label 'Valley Press' to publish both his own future collections (including Autopilot, December 2009), and other local talent.
Due to graduate from university in July 2010, Jamie's future remains uncertain, even after all this bafflingly varied activity. Feel free to drop him a line (and offer him a job!), or simply continue browsing the site (and perhaps buy a couple of books.) Either way, thanks for visiting, and should you see Jamie roaming the streets, tap him on the shoulder and say 'hello.' It'll definitely be appreciated.
