Thank you for visiting my website. My name is David Ashby and I write books for children, grown-ups, grown-downs and very intelligent dogs.
FOR INFORMATION ON MY ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONSULTANCY WORK AND ENGLISH TEACHING
PLEASE CLICK HERE
That’s me in the blue shirt, the other picture is the cover of my book, Gribblebob’s Book of Unpleasant Goblins. The book is set in Uppington Down, Sussex, whereas my home town is Brighton, also in Sussex, on the south coast of the UK. Nowadays I live in Stockholm, Sweden, where I have been since 2002 when I came to be with Elvira, who is now my wife. I think I can speak Swedish, but my two children tell me that I can’t and advise me not to. Forcefully.
Many many years ago I visited a fortune teller who held my hand tightly, pulled me close to her so that I could smell her hair and feel her breath on my face and whispered to me that I would one day live outside the UK, that I would have two children, that I would live to be a very old man indeed and that I would never, ever, have a book published.
Well, she was right about the first two and I’m not dead yet, but I have actually had a book published. It came out in March 2019 thanks to Pushkin Press and Sarah Odedina. I’m glad that was the prediction the fortune teller got wrong.
My book is called “GRIBBLEBOB’S BOOK OF UNPLEASANT GOBLINS” and is illustrated by the great JEN KHATUN. You can get it at such places as Waterstones.com, Amazon.co.uk and Adlibris.
I hope you find something of interest on my website, and that you will enjoy reading about Gribblebob.
You can read some short bits and pieces I have written on Medium, here.
My wife, Elvira, is also a writer. She writes for children as Elvira Ashby, and for adults as Elvira Berg. A couple of years ago we did a joint interview for the Magnus and the Arts YouTube channel, which you can see here, if you really have nothing better to do.
2023 UPDATE!
Very pleased to have come third in the Stockholm Writers Festival First Five Pages Prize with “Ebonie Woodhead is NOT a Witch!” You can read the opening here. Happy to confirm that Ebonie Woodhead is absolutely not a witch. You can see me getting my third prize here.
THANK YOU!
PS – the photo of me was taken by my friend Mathias Sautermeister, and he made me look as good as is humanly possible. Normally I look more like Gribblebob.