My name is Ashley Meggitt PhD, and I am a British writer, musician, and Amazon bestselling author.

I live near Cambridge, UK, with my wife Jane, a cat, and what I am sure are climbing badgers in my loft. I left school in 1982 to join a psychedelic rock band – Double Zero – when I realised that sex, drugs, and rock and roll was a thing.  Subsequently, I went back to education and after graduating took up a position as the IT Manager at Jesus College, a Cambridge University college.

During my time at the college, I co-wrote 3 technical books on IT with one of them selling over 100,000 copies, gained an MSc in Information Technology as well as an MA in Creative Writing. Needing a change, I left the college in 2015 and retrained obtaining an MSc in Psychology.  After working in the mental health world for a short time I started a PhD in Sport Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University. I have now finished the PhD and am embarking on a journey as an 'older' early career reseracher!  I'm also a sometime associate lecturer in sport psychology.

My debut novel The Dark Chorus was published in October 2020 by Darkstroke Books (darkstroke.com). It was conceived as a portfolio piece for entry onto the Creative Writing MA. One fellow student was so disturbed by the first two chapters of The Dark Chorus that she denounced it in class and claimed that it would without doubt fail the degree. I have to say that I have taken some pleasure in the fact that it went on to help me achieve a distinction.

I do often complain that writing doesn’t come easily to me and grumble to anyone in my vicinity that I ‘prefer to have written than actually write’. Grumbling and being grumpy is something I enjoy, but I should stress that is not the same thing as being miserable. No one likes to be miserable.

I have written some bits and pieces over the last few years but most recently I have tackled the issue of characterisation on Val Penny’s Blog and looked at themes within The Dark Chorus on Jo Fenton’s Thursday Themes blog. I’ve been lucky enough to have a number of short stories published online and my story ‘Famous Last Words’ was published in Rattle Tales Anthology 2. For this bit of success, I went down to Brighton where Rattle Tales were based (sadly they are no more) to read the story out in person at a spoken word evening. It was great fun.

I am also a member of the British Psychological Society, a technical official for the British Triathlon Federation (Eastern Region), and a triathlon coach.

I often think my epitaph should read ‘He was slightly better than average’.