Ken Puddicombe’s first calling was in the Accounting profession. He’s a Professional Accountant [CPA,CMA] who provided controllership for a number of companies in the private sector before he retired to pursue his love of writing. His writing has appeared in newspapers and literary journals. Originally from British Guiana [now Guyana] in South America, he emmigrated to Canada in 1971 and still lives there with his family. Racing With The Rain, his first novel and is set in British Guiana, Cuba, Canada and Guyana was published in 2012. His second novel Junta was published in 2014 and is set in the fictional island of Saint Anglia where the military stages a coup. His collection of short stories Down Independence Boulevard came out in 2017. His genre is fiction, based on international locations but especially focussed in Canada, the Caribbean and Guyana.
British-born Michael Joll married his one and only in 1969 and together they arrived in Canada in 1973. They have lived in the Toronto area virtually ever since. In spite of being a lifelong atrocious speller, (“That’s what editors are for,” his father erroneously told him) he started writing at age five, and did not abandon it until his early twenties when his shortcomings became painfully apparent. During a lifetime spent investigating the greener grass on the other side, only to find each time that it grew over the septic tank, he has worked at Selfridges on Oxford Street, London as a retail seller of Continental Delicatessen, in the life and marine insurance business, a salesman of false teeth and cake mix (not for the same employer), a police officer and paralegal. After nearly ten years as Company President, his last job was as a part time temporary deck hand and purser on a car ferry. Convinced that he was the next Shakespeare, a return to writing came with retirement in 2004. His first published short story, “Officially Old” came in 2011, along with a cheque for $100. He continues to write short fiction, and uses spellcheck these days. Scattered among nearly forty short stories are three radio plays, produced and broadcast on Canadian Public Radio, four novels, and a memoir he is ghostwriting for a friend.
