Michael Amherst has been published in the Guardian, New Statesman, the Spectator, The White Review and Contrappasso magazine. His book-length essay, Go the Way Your Blood Beats, won the 2019 Stonewall Nonfiction Prize. He is also the winner of the 2020 Hubert Butler Essay Prize and was shortlisted for the Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts. His short fiction has been longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, and has featured at Stroud Short Stories, the inaugural London LitCrawl and the Accidental Festival at London's Roundhouse. The Boyhood of Cain is his first novel.