John Nevinson was born in Liverpool, UK, where he trained to be a teacher. He then worked in Carlisle primary schools for almost all of the next forty years. He always enjoyed story writing but, apart from two stories in a school magazine, never saw them in print. However, in 1998, John entered a story called Snowy into a national newspaper competition and was amazed to be one of the winners who appeared in the Independent Story of the Year 6 anthology. He remembers going to the famous Groucho Club in London for the award In 2002, this children's story was selected to go in the Brownie Annual, and he was asked to write a special story, Grannie Peculiar, for the following year's annual. For several years after this, he did little writing, but joining the Carlisle Writers' Group in 2010 gave John the incentive he needed to apply himself with more determination A Sting In The Tale is his first book, and the majority of the short stories result from writers' group assignments.