Ian Ayris

Ian Ayris is the author of three novels, a novella, and over forty short stories. The first of his trilogy of novels began with Abide with Me (2012) and was completed with Everybody Hurts (2019), the entire trilogy published in one volume by Fahrenheit Press as Shining Like Rainbows (2020). In his writing he seeks to explore the stark reality of his characters with honesty, empathy and understanding, informed by his twenty years’ experience as a qualified counsellor in the East London area. Since 2014, Ian has taught the Beginners and Advanced creative writing workshops for Pen to Print — an Arts Council funded project based in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. As well as creating and teaching the workshops, he is involved in the mentoring side of the project whereby individual writers are mentored on a one-to-one basis for a year in the writing of their debut novels. Rather than following an academic path in life, Ian endured four years as a van boy, worked three months in a record shop, twenty years in mental health and four years in a primary school. Amongst all of these, he also spent time backpacking around Europe in the 1990s, has been married twice, has three children, became a qualified counsellor and gained a First in English Literature at the Open University. Ian lives with his wife and youngest daughter in Romford and spends his time reading, writing, playing his electric guitar and supporting the mighty Dagenham and Redbridge F.C.