Mike Riddell (Michael) survived a New Zealand working class upbringing in Porirua, the youngest child of four in a Railways house. When the family shifted to Christchurch, he became aware that he’d been born on the wrong side of the tracks; but by then the pattern had been set. He negotiated his way through an adolescence punctuated by fighting, drinking, and lust – despite the best efforts of Christchurch Boys High to set him straight. His parents divorced, he discovered political protest, and dropped out of university two years in a row.

After a failed engagement, a couple of years of drug induced haze, and an abundance of short-term labouring jobs, he flew to Australia, hitchhiking up the Eastern coast from Adelaide to Cairns, and spending some time living in a hippie commune in the rainforest north of Cairns. A return to NZ saw him hold down another succession of jobs long enough to earn a fare to the UK. Hitchhiking around the continent and Northern Africa eventually found him in a Moroccan prison for six weeks on a drug conviction. He returned to London, found Rosemary, a New Zealander who became a lifetime partner, and travelled back to New Zealand via Asia.

Eventually there came children (Matthew, Anna, Katherine) and a variety of attempted careers. It was late in life that he found his vocation in writing. It began with free-lance journalism, blossomed into non-fiction books, and produced three novels before he got bored and turned his hand to playwriting. The result, a play about NZ poet James K Baxter, became a surprise hit and toured NZ before heading across to the UK and appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe. In the meantime he managed to scam his way through a PhD at the University of Otago.

An invitation to adapt his first novel, The Insatiable Moon, for screen led to a new life as a screenwriter. It combined his lifelong love of film with a passion for writing, and he continues to pursue this form of self-abuse. The life is made viable by the fact that Rosemary, a first-rate lawyer, has been appointed to the bench. Recently they have moved to the North Island, where Mike established Holy Bucket Productions.

Mike’s dog, Baxter, is his life coach.