BEGINNER’S PLUCK: John Butler

JOHN BUTLER’S main work has been in film and TV. In 2006 he moved to Los Angeles, and started writing a blog.

That led to a column in the Irish Times, lasting for two years. Meanwhile John secured an agent, and a publisher. He wrote a memoir about his time, in the ’90s in San Francisco, and was advised to turn this into a novel.

“The character is not me, and 90% of what happens to him is not my story, but it’s definitely my view of the city, and a lot is drawn from my memory. Once I was given permission to lie, to push my characters in different directions and see what happened, the writing flowed.”