No Surrender

Reprinted here with permission of the author, Matthew Hughes.

Keynote Opening Speech to the Surrey International Writers Conference

(This is a speech I gave to about six hundred emerging writers a few years ago. I thought it might be inspirational – except for the scary parts)

Good morning.

I thought I would tell you the story of my life as a writer. It's meant to be inspiring, though for emerging writers, parts of it may be terrifying.

I was born in a council house in Liverpool. My father was ...