28 March 2024, 16:14
By Furniture News Jul 24, 2019

Out of Hours: The YA author

Working in the furniture industry can be incredibly demanding, yet many members of the trade find the time to pursue noteworthy avenues alongside the day job. In Out of Hours, we discover what some of the industry’s more colourful characters get up to in their spare time …

My name is Gavin Boden, and I’m a sales agent. Working as GB Agencies, I sell furniture into retail.

Out of hours, I like to write young adults’ (YA) books. I’m having my first book published in August this year – it’s called Time Travelling Heroes, The Dreams of Time.

I became involved in this because over the last six years I have been through a great deal of loss, losing my sister in 2013 to cancer, my mum in 2015, and then my brother in a road traffic accident in 2017. I used the power of imagination to get myself through the grieving process, by escaping to an imaginary place and writing about it. My sister was an amazing inspiration to me and loved my writing – she was always pushing me to write a book and get it published.

It asks that I commit to several hours of writing each week, but the biggest commitment will be the time and work it will need to market the book, including my website and social media presence.

I’m most proud of that fact that I’ve completed the first book (which I’ve dedicated to my sister).

Ten years down the line, I see myself as a successful author, with several published books under my belt across lots of different genres (hopefully being nominated for literary awards!).

I have learned that writing can be very therapeutic, and can take you away from the stresses and strains of the normal working day in the furniture industry.

You might not know this, but I hold a Guinness World Record in ten-pin bowling. Because of the work MacMillan Cancer Support did for my sister, I wanted to raise some much-needed funds for the charity, so in June 2017 me and my friend Anthony Kyme (from Cleethorpes) bowled for 24 hours without any rest, and knocked down 37,653 pins to break the world record by over 1200. At the same time, we raised over £7000 for the charity.

If you want to know more, email me at [email protected] and I will put you on the mailing list for updates about the book – when it will be on sale, where it will be available, book signings, special events, etc.

Get in touch with the editor on [email protected] if you’d like to share your story.

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