about me

I'm a budding fantasy author with a story that has been a part of my brain for as long as I can remember.

I recently completed a Bachelors Degree in Creative Writing at University in Liverpool where I learned as much as I could about the publishing industry.

I have become known for my on-line comic series The Phantom and Alien. It is a strange story about a man who is forced to live with a slime creature who's sole purpose in life is to inconvenience those around him.

I have written a 113,000 word manuscript called The Dinosaur Prince which I hope to get published at some point. It developed over the last 15 years into something rather larger than I had initially imagined it could ever be. The seemingly random assortment of characters, races and stories are mostly due to the fact that the tales were initiated some time before 1996 when my younger brother Jonathan asked me to tell stories about his Dinosaur toys. As his twin brother Levi became increasingly interested, his toys entered the stories as well, but these were Bears, forming the first unusual friendship. This friendship was between Jonathan’s Dinosaur (simply called Dino) and Levi’s Bear (then called ‘Fat Teddy’ due to his thick fur).
After each Christmas and Birthday, more characters were added to their world and it became difficult to keep track of who was related to whom. Some tales were written down, usually as a comic strip, but most were told orally, my brothers having annoyingly good memories ensured a sort of continuity.

By 2003 I had decided that the stories were getting rather larger and more complicated than before. Maps of the land were drawn up and extensive family trees created and moved around.

I soon realised, because Jonathan was getting older and the tales I had enjoyed making would pail into insignificance very soon, I decided it was high time I wrote some down. What was begun was ‘The Dinosaur Prince’, the tale of the first adventures of Diyn.

In 2005 I completely redrafted the story and began thinking of the overall story that should be considered. I outlined the full story in the summer of that year. Although details have changed, the over all storyline has changed little since then.

Each race has been given its own history and characteristics. Each had its own internal groups as well, to make matters worse.

Many have asked about the front cover. I designed it myself and used Microsoft Image Composer (a free bit of software that came with Front Page 98 - which you can probably get from eBay).
If you want to see a larger version of the cover, there's a page called "Other Works" on my website below.

favourite books

The Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
The Silmarillion
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Looking For Alaska
Tim the Tiny Horse
The Iliad
Mythago Wood
Redwall
Phantastes
The Golden Key
Elric
Tales from Ovid
The Colour of Magic
The Adventures of Baron Muchousen
Alisiyad
The War of the Worlds
The Invisible Man
The First Men in the Moon
The Once and Future King
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

my websites

http://joelcornah.webs.com