Danny King

After a difficult childhood in Slough (which he liked) and Yately, North Hants (which he didn’t), a teenage crime spree and short spell finding love in the US, Danny took an Access Course at Farnborough College of Technology and a year after that, a one-year journalism course at The London College of Printing, in Elephant and Castle. Unfortunately, when he graduated, he applied to over 100 newspapers and magazines but got absolutely nowhere, until finally one magazine offered him a job.

In Danny’s words: 

“Model Railway Enthusiast. Honestly, what a prospect, but what could I do? I took it. I thought I’d give it 18 months just to get a bit of experience on my CV then get another job. This proved harder than anticipated, well who’s going to hire some bloke off Model Railway Enthusiast? I wouldn’t. I hated it, it was utterly soul destroying in the worst way possible. The one silver lining about my job was that I did absolutely nothing all day. I just sat around reading the paper, doing the crossword or playing chess with my mate Clive across the server (Clive was a mate from The London College of Printing who’d had about as much luck finding work as me so I managed to get him a job on Park Homes & Holiday Caravans, another of Link House’s winning titles). So, just to fill the time, I started writing again. Short stories at first, and scripts and funny poems and then novels. One publisher that had given my novel THE BURGLAR DIARIES a good sniff the year before had a change of heart and offered me a publishing deal when I proposed two more crime diaries – THE BANK ROBBER DIARIES and THE HITMAN DIARIES.”

He now has had a novel published every year since 2001 (though not 2008). He also wrote the 2007 BBC3 sitcom ‘Thieves Like Us’ and is currently adapting the rest of his books into either TV or movie screenplays. After 17 years in London, he left The Smoke for The Sticks and now lives in cathedral city of Chichester, West Sussex, with his lovely wife Jeannie King, who – Danny says, insisted on getting a mention somewhere on his website, and his finger-eating son, Charlie.

Danny’s first feature film ‘Wild Bill’ which he co-wrote with Dexter Fletcher (who also directed) was released in 2011 by Universal and starred Charlie Creed Miles, Will Poulter and Andy Serkis. (Winner 2012 Writers Guild Awards Best First Feature, Nominated Best Newcomer BAFTA Awards 2013). His screenplay ‘The Devil and Me’ has been option by Russian producers GM Productions. He worked on a rewrite of ‘Cherub’ series of books for Sarah Radclyffe / BBC Films. His novel ‘Hitman Diaries’ has been commissioned as a pilot for NBC with ‘Walking Dead’ producer Gale Ann Hurd and is currently developing a feature for Peter Cattaneo for Forward Films. Danny’s  screenplay a comedy horror called ‘Eat Locals’ was directed by Jason Flemyng and stars Charlie Cox, Dexter Fletcher Anne Reid and Ruth Jones for Vignette Films. He is currently writing a feature film In Memorial for IronBox Film.