DESCRIBED as one of the country’s most inventive young writers and – by Irvine Welsh no less – a “major talent”, Richard Milward presents as a slightly shy character with a rock star-style haircut and a noticeable Teesside twang.

He began writing short stories aged just 12, inspired by Welsh’s ‘Trainspotting’, and thereafter began pestering publishers in an effort to get his work into print.

Apples – actually the seventh novel he had written and based on his teenage years – was published in 2007 when he was 22 and centres on two characters, obsessive compulsive ‘Adam’ and the hedonistic ‘Eve’. Recalling that period of his life and the success of Apples, he says he was caught up in a “whirlwind”, having previously faced repeated knockbacks from publishers.

“I got hundreds of rejection letters, but kept plugging away and eventually I came across people who had faith in me,” he says.

“I sent [Apples] to a couple of publishers and within a couple of months they got in touch and wanted to meet up. I think they wanted to check that I wasn’t a 50 year old bloke talking about being 19 year old and it was bona fide.”

Milward, who was born in Middlesbrough and brought up in Guisborough, was two months into an art college course in London when Apples secured him a book deal.

“As I was living in London it almost felt like the streets were literally paved in gold. It was so exciting and quite mad to be suddenly plunged into this literary lifestyle. It was like a whirlwind I was swept up in,” he says.

“The press around Apples was quite intense and I would have to bunk off college to do interviews and so on, but I finished the course as I wanted to see it through. In fact it was nice to be able to go to college, splash a bit of paint around, and be able to continue writing. I never took anything for granted.”

The Northern Echo:

MILWARD says he always had the intention of moving back to Middlesbrough following the end of his degree – in part because he enjoys its “real wit and warmth” – and he has now written on a full-time basis for the past six years, even if he describes the money as erratic. He has produced two more novels, 2009’s ‘Ten Storey Love Song’, which is one continuous paragraph and consists of a series of interwoven stories set in a block of flats in London.

His last novel, 2012’s blackly comedic ‘Kimberly’s Capital Punishment’ saw the main character killed off half way through with readers encouraged to “roll the dice” to see what might happen to her in the afterlife.

For his latest effort – tentatively titled ‘The Headaches’ – he has turned to boxing. The inspiration for the book, which could be out next year, came from a magazine assignment he undertook interviewing teenage boxers at a Bethnal Green boxing club. He has also spoken to Olympic gold medallist Luke Campbell, from Hull, and visited Cuba – a country famed for its amateur boxers.

“The books I have been writing have involved hedonism and debauchery in some way, but this is different. It is quite interesting the way that these boxers are addicted to such a sober sport which is an obsession for them,” he says.

“Immersing myself in this environment opened my eyes to the sacrifices these lads have to make. They are encouraged to turn their backs on the things that a lot of teenagers enjoy, fast food, drinking, chasing girls.

“I found it incredible the way youngsters boxing in Cuba have the same dedicated spirit as the young lads who box in Boro or Hull. They have that camaraderie and all talk with the same passion.”

Milward, 30, says he is interested in the extremes of human behaviour, which he tends to exaggerate in his novels and give a “dream-like, nightmarish” quality.

“I just describe things as weirdly and as wonderfully as I can,” he says.

“I view writing novels like chipping away at a block of marble sentence by sentence. You have got to be quite dedicated." I can go through periods of quite intense work and not leave the house for a couple of days.”

So what is the next chapter for Richard Milward?

“I have always got ideas, I never take a break from writing and can see myself ploughing on furiously,” he says.

“The money seems to be disappearing from publishing so I’m hoping that I can stick on in there. I’ll be juggling writing and my artwork and just carrying on basically.”

  • Richard Milward’s paintings are the focus of a free exhibition ‘Trip Around the Sun’ from May 7 at the House of Blah Blah, in Exchange Square, Middlesbrough.