Author Q&A: Andy Statham

Author/ Bookish Everybody
23 November 2025

Originally a teacher, Andy Statham tried a number of of things before he met his destiny as a writer. He credits his writing partner Alan Dickson with whom he meets every Saturday and not being afraid to try as the secrets behind his latter day literary success.

How did you become a writer?

Accidentally! I used to be an IT teacher, and along with two colleagues, Alan Dickson and Kevin Lester, we ran a small company that offered IT courses for schools across Asia. We were passionate about the soft skills our course helped students develop, but as education shifted back towards exam-based courses, our course fell out of demand.

We decided to take these soft skills and move to corporate training and Alan and I were tasked with creating scenarios to teach these skills. This was at the end of 2019, and then Covid hit. Corporate training ground to a halt as companies couldn’t organise large gatherings. The idea was shelved, but by then, Alan and I had caught the writing bug and our scenarios morphed into a children’s story – Kevin the Dodo in The Dinosaurs Are Late. We found an illustrator on Fiverr, printed a few copies, and suddenly, there it was – our first book. While we couldn’t find a traditional publisher, we learned a lot about self-publishing and over the next few years, launched a number of Kevin the Dodo picture books. We then decided to try our hand at longer stories and we are now working on a series entitle The Richerton Chronicles. We’ve published two novels so far and have just started a third. So being authors was never our intention but it’s turned out to be very satisfying.

What would you be doing otherwise?

Much the same as I am now. I travel all round Hong Kong schools watching trainee teachers teach, which is great fun and very reassuring to see that education in Hong Kong is alive and doing very well. And when I’m not doing that, I like to go hiking and exploring Hong Kong with it’s wonderful countryside and diverse and vibrant culture.

Of the characters you have created, which is your favourite and why?

Villains are always the most interesting, aren’t they? In our first novel, The Unlikely Warrior, we created an evil soldier, Inflamous Colon, someone determined to climb the ranks at any cost, driven by a toxic desire to meet his overbearing father’s expectations. He’s willing to sell his soul (and the souls of others) to get what he wants. Characters like him are inherently fascinating because they’re so deeply flawed, in much the same way as Professor Snape is more compelling than Harry Potter.

Tell us about your writing method. Is there a secret?

Alan and I meet every Saturday morning to discuss all things book-related, whether it’s publishing, marketing (our bête noire!), brainstorming new ideas, or editing what we’ve written during the week. Once a story starts to take shape, I tend to immerse myself completely, sometimes thinking about it almost every waking moment.

If there’s a secret, it’s this: write something. You don’t need to get it perfect on the first try. Even if you hate what you’ve written, it’s still progress and helps to clarify what you don’t want to write and brings you closer to what you do.

Which author, alive or dead, would you most like to meet?

Never a good idea to meet your heroes in real life, they will never meet your expectations. But I suppose Tom Sharpe stands as someone who could make me laugh out loud with his over the top characters and farcical situations. I loved Vintage Stuff in which a school teacher and student launch an attack on a castle in Europe to rescue a woman who didn’t need rescuing. Sharpe had a rare talent for weaving chaos and humour together, and I’d love to be able to capture even a fraction of that in my own writing.

Tell us about your favourite bookshop in the world.

Not exactly a bookshop, but there’s a fascinating place in Wanaka, New Zealand, called Puzzling World. It started as an outdoor 3D maze with a small shop and a cosy café where you could sit by a roaring log fire, play with puzzles, or curl up with a book from their small but entertaining collection. It was such a unique and inviting space, perfect for losing yourself in a good read or just enjoying the atmosphere.

Sadly, over time, commercialism has taken its toll. The cosy café became a restaurant and the log fire gave way to heat pumps.

What advice would you give your younger, writer self?

Don’t be afraid to try – and always have a backup plan just in case you aren’t the next Dan Brown! There’s something incredibly satisfying about completing a story and holding your book in your hands. Whether or not others buy it, that joy of creating and getting lost in your imaginary world is worth it.

This book can be bought from Bookazine, www.bookazine.com.

About the Author

Bookish Everybody

Books and reading are too often on the periphery. Enter: Bookish Everybody, a one-stop community of book enthusiasts to read or write reviews, join read-alongs, buy/sell/give books and join our competitions to win books: www.bookisheverybody.com.