David Austin has been a sailor, an actor and a farmer, and a critically acclaimed novelist. Educated at the Pangbourne Nautical College, he went to sea with the Merchant Service, and the sea has always played an important role in his writing. When he came ashore he became a professional actor, and then studied for a degree in English and European Literature at the University of Essex. He later became a farmer, and managed a 330-acre farm for twenty years before retiring to write.

David’s writing has been compared to Joseph Conrad, and his debut novel, A Clear Calling was universally acclaimed and short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. A powerful and evocative account of a tortured soul’s battle with the unforgiving ocean, Doris Lessing described it as “the best first novel I have read in years”. He lives in Norfolk and is currently working on a new novel.