About:

SIMON LAMOON writes satirical and psychological fiction seasoned with a generous helping of absurdist humour. His stories are driven by a fascination with the contradictions of human nature, where ordinary lives veer unexpectedly into the bizarre, and comedy often reveals uncomfortable truths.

Although he spent much of his professional life working in computing and the financial services industry—most recently specialising in financial crime prevention and anti-money laundering systems—writing was never far away. After completing degrees in literature and the arts, he finally gave himself permission to write the stories that had been accumulating over years of observation, experience and those wonderfully strange conversations that refuse to be forgotten.

His literary influences range from the surreal brilliance of Monty Python and the quick wit of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the razor-sharp satire of Tom Sharpe. Their spirit can be found in his own work, where humour, psychology and the absurd combine to explore the more curious corners of modern life.

One lifelong ambition never quite got off the ground. Simon once applied to become Britain's first astronaut, only to hear his application singled out during a BBC Radio 4 discussion when officials were asked whether they had received any unusual submissions. "Oh yes," came the reply, "we've even had someone named Lamoon." He has taken this as a gentle reminder that his place was destined to be behind a keyboard rather than inside a rocket.

Simon lives in Hertfordshire with his wife, their three children and a succession of gloriously eccentric dogs. When he isn't writing, he's usually collecting ideas from everyday life—proof that the strangest fiction often begins with an entirely ordinary conversation.