Stephen Salam
ABOUT ME
For almost 40 years I have been a Producer and Director of content in broadcast TV, advertising and corporate films. In my spare time I like to travel, play the piano, go to gigs and ride a bike.
My latest creative venture is the writing of a series of fantasy novels set in the mythical land of Astrellion.
biography
Early years
I was born in North Shields, England, in 1961. My father Junos worked in the shipyards on the River Tyne and my mother Rita worked in factories and shops. We lived in a council house with my two younger brothers Christopher and David, and I was educated at the local comprehensive. After my A levels, I entered Durham University, where I read physics and grew to appreciate the way great scientists such as Einstein and Dirac described the Universe by harnessing the power of their imaginations.
Career
After graduating, I was offered a trainee position in a production company in Newcastle, where I learned to load film cameras, edit and eventually to be a director. After winning my first Royal Television Society award in 1990, I decided to set up my own production company. Since then I have been lucky enough to make films all over the world, and have worked with a variety of odd, interesting and very talented characters along the way. I am still a hands on film maker, and my passion lies in the structuring of content to deliver a great narrative.
Writing
At school my study of literature was fairly limited, and it never occurred to me that I might eventually become a writer. While at university I started reading the works of authors including J.R.R. Tolkien, Mervyn Peake, Emile Zola, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Hardy, Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock and Ernest Hemingway to name just a few.
Eventually, after many years of thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that I should write my own books to describe fantastic worlds or alternative universes, where anything is possible and the only limits are my imagination and that of the reader.