Nigel McDowell grew up in County Fermanagh, rural Northern Ireland, and as a child spent most of his time battling boredom, looking for adventure - crawling through ditches, climbing trees, devising games to play with his brother and sister, and reading. His favourite book as a child was The Witches by Roald Dahl.
After graduating with a degree in English he spent almost two years living and working in Australia and New Zealand. With him he took a small notebook containing notes about a boy called "Bruno Atlas", and a seaside town called "Pitch End". When he returned to Ireland after his travels, one notebook had multiplied into many, and eventually his notes for Tall Tales from Pitch End filled a large cardboard box... TALL TALES FROM PITCH END was Nigel's first novel, followed up by THE BLACK NORTH.
THE HOUSE OF MOUNTFATHOM was Nigel's final novel, before his death in early 2016 at the age of thirty-four.
