TP Bragg writes fast-paced literary fiction and performs and records music (see foot of page). He now has a collection of four very polished novels: Biting Tongues; Veneer; Seeds and The Corridor in the literary genre. In 2001 he had a novel The English Dragon published - he has written a sequel to this titled Oak which was published in 2006. He has also written two genre novels - a thriller, ONX and a sci-fi/horror/thriller novel: The White Rooms.

Over the past decade he has had many short-stories published in magazines, won a few literary prizes and had poetry and articles published too. His latest success has been in the Biscuit International Short Story Competition where he is to be published later this year (2005) in an anthology of the finalists (www.biscuitpublishing.com). He is a singer-songwriter, plays guitar and flute and "gigs" regularly playing drums with a jazz band. His latest CD Fields of England is now available (see below for details). His Best of Bragg 1992-2004 (Volume 1) will be available on-line sometime next year - Black Cat will carry details.

You can E-mail Tim Bragg at tahbragg@tiscali.co.uk.

TP is married to a French woman and they have a young son.

The White Rooms

Adam X works for government Records on the Register. The Register monitors those who transgress the laws of Upper - in particular those who have sexual union with 'subs' (people from subearth; also known as 'su' and 'Pandlam'). The transgressors are tracked down and interrogated by 'catchers' and then killed. The Catcher (the first of the catchers) has created a genus of spider (Rapithra Thufri) that is half robotic and half organic. The catchers hunt with these spiders - communicating with the beasts in 'whispers' (in fact through sweat DNA).

This is lively paced, thrilling and thoughtful. It analyses an apartheid of the future - not based on race but based on health and disease - and in so doing offers a critique of the modern world. In The White Rooms' divided world, Upper controls subearth in order to keep its land and people disease free. This disease is a terrifying mixture of numbed flesh, stilled blood and the gradual erosion of the mind. As the body slowly loses physical sensation then does the mind gradually loses sense of itself.

Adam appears to lead a perfect life - but his marriage is in trouble, he has gambled his 'credit' away and can no longer afford 'shots' to protect him from the disease. Then with his wife pregnant a 'helper' - a sub - a beautiful girl called Zee asks him for help. Thus begins his terrifying descent into forbidden lands and relationships...

Biting Tongues

A novel divided into twenty-five chapters; 80,000 words in length.

This is the story of Jack 'Jackie' who has been imprisoned in an old air-raid shelter for seven years and seven months. The novel begins with Jackie’s diary extracts written from within a mental hospital. The story is about why Jack was imprisoned and the effect of that imprisonment on him and all those connected.

Biting Tongues conjures the experience of those who have dwelt in another world within our world - an 'oubliette' - and who, when they are released back into 'reality', are looked to for insight and wisdom. It is as if their suffering and isolation can give us the answers we seek to the meaning of our collective (and relatively safe) existence.

The novel investigates Jack’s 'dream-time' which he learnt to enter in 'the dark' as he terms it. 'Dream-time' is about the transformation of thoughts into words and words into 'reality'. This is mirrored by his obsession with books in the hospital and in this sense the novel explores the relationship between reality and fiction (and the creative act) - plus the redemptive power of fiction.

In the dark, Jack had to learn to survive.

The main themes are: love; time; the nature of sanity/insanity; freedom and imprisonment; redemption; power. The main sub-plot of the novel deals with how and why Jack is imprisoned.

Against all the anguish of the past there is a movement of optimism and for all the bitterness and darkness in this novel there is also a powerful sense of love and hope.

It is Jack’s imprisonment and the strange world of twilight reality enmeshed with dream-time fiction that gives the whole novel its peculiar feeling and narrative direction.