Ben Myers

Ben Myers is a British novelist, journalist, and poet born in Durham in 1976. He studied English literature at Leeds and has worked as a music journalist and reviewer. His novels include Richard (2010), Pig Iron (2012), Beastings (2014), and Turning Blue (2016), several of which were published by small independent presses before his breakthrough with a major publisher. The Gallows Pole (2017, Bluemoose Books) is based on the true story of the Cragg Vale Coiners — a gang of West Yorkshire wool croppers who in the 1760s ran the most successful counterfeiting operation in British history under the leadership of David 'King' David Hartley. Written in an inventive vernacular prose that mingles dialect, poetry, and myth, it won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in 2018 and was later adapted for BBC television. Myers has championed independent publishing throughout his career. His subsequent novels include The Offing (2019) and Cuddy (2023), a novel about the medieval pilgrim cult of Saint Cuthbert.