I haven’t always been a writer, having worked as an electronic engineer, travelling around the world on research ships from the Arctic to Antarctica.

My mother’s maiden name was Clarke, and Antarctica is where I was given the nickname “Chalkie”, which I use as a pen name. There are a lot of other other David Whites out there.

Science fiction and fantasy has fascinated me since childhood. I read The Fellowship of the Ring from the local village library at the age of 12, or thereabouts, and never looked back. Years of collecting second-hand paperbacks means that there’s now a very long shelf in the spare room, starting with Aldiss, Asimov and Banks and ending with Vance and Zelazny, with a hundred or so old and new favourites in between. My most recent read was Three Body Problem It was interesting, but I won’t be trying the rest of the trilogy.

Currently reading The Stolen Calix by Derry McKeone. He’s a friend and it’s a historical novel based in the 13th century. It’s an easy read and I can recommend it, having read about 50 pages to date. I’m also reading Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. I’m about halfway through and it’s great, a fast-paced story across several millennia, with some unexpected twists. Definitely a one for fans of spiders in all their forms.

I took early retirement in 2019 and thus found the time for writing. Short stories at first, then novels. Murdoch is the first to make it into print but I have more to follow, hopefully. Murdoch’s sequel is taking shape, but also a sequence of spooky SF short stories.

Before taking to writing I painted, and the cover of Murdoch’s Web is based on a painting of mine. It’s available (free) as a digital poster to anyone who subscribes.

Outside of all that I sail (that’s me on my boat Evadne,) help my wife in the garden and have had an allotment where I’ve grown fruit and veg for over ten years. I also make my own beer. Oh, and we have a dog. That’s Chloe snoozing on my lap on the boat, looking particularly furry.