Michael Morgan's life started in the Himalayas and only got rockier as he strove to cope with the English boarding school system. He studied geology at Cambridge before exploring parts of Australia and Africa, as well as a variety of mental states available to a child of his times. Taking a break in Dublin and working as a gardener, he fell foul of a sizeable crop of opium poppies. It was while sitting in a warm bath coming down from this blunder that he decided to pass the agonising minutes by writing a play. He never forgot the way that writing can release the amazements of the imagination and dreamed of a life as a writer throughout his time in the mines of Northern Australia. Now he has followed that dream and writes novels in between posing as a consulting geologist.