I am a novelist, journalist, editor, publisher and academic. I’m basically a writer.

My two published novels, I’m Jack (2015) and Hinton (2020) were both put out by Granta in the UK. Hinton was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. I’m Jack was optioned for the screen by Mad as Birds, and I co-wrote two different versions of a script before the option expired.

I have written another novel that was widely rejected, and have a couple of false starts on my hard drive. I’m working on a new novel, and am compiling two series of conceptual shorter pieces, one of which I’m working to produce in handprinted limited edition.

As a journalist I’ve had stories in The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, The Fence, Granta, Dazed, The Fortean Times, on the LRB blog and the online outlets of some other national publications; and in a raft of fondly remembered but departed titles: Bizarre, FACT magazine, Jack, Loaded, Sleaze Nation. I’ve twice worked as a freelance producer for TV companies to develop stories I’ve written or edited, and I’ve appeared several times on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4.

My investigation into the corrupt history of Queen Ethelburga’s, an independent school in North Yorkshire, first published by The Fence magazine, resulted in further reporting for The Telegraph and The Times. Shortly after my first investigation was published, the Secretary of State for Education banned the owner of QE from ever again being involved in running a school.

As an editor, I ran the reviews section of Bizarre magazine for four years, and worked as an online sub in both news and arts and culture for the Telegraph for another four. I’ve had short contract sub-editing gigs at book publishers Act Two, The Financial Times, The Mirror and the Sunday magazine at The News of the World. I was an editorial intern on the academic journal 19 and compiled and edited The Selected Non-Fiction of J.G. Ballard, which was published by MIT Press in the UK and the USA and longlisted for a BSFA award.

I am currently part of a small collective that writes, edits, makes and publishes Offal, a journal of literary and artistic oddities and offcuts and an audio-zine, distributed by WhatsApp. The audio makes innovative use of AI text-to-voice technology. We also make art objects and merchandise.

I teach creative writing at Birkbeck College, where I studied for my PhD. I’m a Senior Lecturer and former convenor of the MA in Cultural and Critical Studies. I’ve published several essays in leading journals, and one of these – The Higher Spaces of Weird Fiction – was shortlisted for a SFRA Pioneer Award. I’ve been a fellow of the Royal Literary Fund in the School of Law at the University of Leeds from 2022. I’ve discussed my work at the Freud Museum, the ICA and the South Bank.

In 2023-24 I was a collaborator on Gemma Anderson’s stunning Artangel installation And She Built a Crooked House, for which I contributed an essay, co-produced an audio piece, and appeared alongside Gemma at an artist event.

All my work has been unified by two themes: the written word, and how ideas – and reality – are represented and documented by, and in, that technology.

I was once a human cannonball, I won 64 grand on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and I love rave music, cooking, comedy, skiing, and watching shit TV with my family. I’m trying to learn Italian.

If you want to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you: mjblacklock [@] gmail.com. I’m on twitter @drblacklock.

Some mugshots