Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
Loading
SB![]()
author
S.D. Breen
S.D. Breen grew up in Highbury, North London, left home and school at 16 and moved to Stoke Newington. During and after a lukewarm dabble in further education, Breen did a number o...view moreS.D. Breen grew up in Highbury, North London, left home and school at 16 and moved to Stoke Newington. During and after a lukewarm dabble in further education, Breen did a number of jobs including working in a teabag factory, house-cleaning, counting pools-coupons, posing for art-classes, office-temping and youth-work; for the bargain fee of a cheese and onion sandwich and a cup of tea, Breen appeared fleetingly in a Derek Jarman film.
Having moved deeper into Hackney, Breen spent three years as a physiotherapy assistant before working as an illustrator, feature-writer and film-reviewer for Nursing Mirror. A period working in animation followed: first for the Oscar-winning Richard Williams studio, then on a French TV series in Paris and finally on the Pink Floyd film The Wall.
Breen left Hackney for rural Devon, keeping chickens, making hay and milking goats, also running a modest catering business interspersed with the occasional stint as purveyor of second-hand tat and vintage clothing. After studying as a mature student, Breen obtained a starred first-class degree and went on to qualify to teach English language and literature to adults. This led to a post in a prison and involvement in many fascinating projects, which included teaching on a successful university Access course, participating in various creative-writing projects with the inmates and in an innovative literature-based course designed to help reduce re-offending. Breen was also the prisons acting writer-in-residence, the supervisor of the inmates magazine and manager of the Media Centre which housed the prison radio-station.
In 2003 Breen moved into a decrepit hovel-by-the-sea in south-west Ireland, surviving the first Atlantic winter despite the absence of plumbing, drainage or mains electricity, and a water-supply in the form of one outdoor tap. The hovel is now habitable, with views of heartbreaking beauty.
cuckoo is S.D. Breens first novel; there are at least two more in production.view less