Joe Dunthorne, writer
Chris PowerObserver
Swansea-born poet and writer Joe Dunthorne's hilarious first novel, Submarine, revolves around teenage misfit Oliver Tate. 'Although Oliver's not cool,' says Dunthorne, 'he almost is. He just about gets by with limited skills.'A graduate of the UEA Creative Writing MA, as a student he won the coveted Curtis Brown Prize. 'It allowed me to finish Submarine without getting a full-time job, which helped a lot.' Film rights for the novel have already been snapped up.
Literature's gain is music's loss. 'I was certain I was going to be a rock star. Eventually, realising I had a very poor sense of rhythm, it all seemed to fall apart.'
Writing Submarine was a well-ordered exercise. 'I had all the pages on my wall. I plotted graphs to be sure I was keeping up my word count.' Now his method is less regimented. 'When everyone in my flat goes out to work I'm on my own, so I think: I might as well do some writing.'
His second novel is proving tricky, though: 'I started this complicated multi-character, semi-fantasy, semi-gangster story. I thought: why am I doing this? It's something I haven't shown my agent.'
· Submarine (£14.99, Hamish Hamilton) is published on 7 February