GARY KEMBLE

Meet the social Media co-ordinator behind horror novel Strange Ink

Tell us about your protagonist.

Harry Hendrick was a promising young journalism student, but his confidence was shattered by a near-miss with a defamation lawsuit. He’s been stuck at a local paper for over a decade – bored stupid but taking comfort from the familiarity. After a night out on the town he wakes up with a bizarre tattoo on his neck…

What sort of research did you do?

All the military/crime research was via books (The Amazing SAS by Ian McPhedran, The Brotherhoods by Arthur Veno and SAS Sniper by Rob Maylor are worth a read) or the internet. I got a bit obsessive – for every twist and turn I wanted to see if something like that’d ever happened.

How long did the book take to write?

I had the basic idea years before I started writing. It felt like a solid concept, and I was scared of screwing it up! In 2011 I was awarded an Australia Council grant, which enabled me to take time off work to write. I decided to go part-time rather than take three months off, and I’m glad I did, because I continued researching and the story evolved a lot over the year I worked on it.

What authors would you be most happy to be compared to?

Stephen King, Joe Hill and John Birmingham.

Strange Ink is released on 9 October.