These painful, aggravating experiences led him to Jamaica, a place he hoped for change. Instead he found himself mugged, stabbed and in prison, having watched his friend drown. In Jamaica he was the White boy.

NB. At the time of this interview I was one chapter in, and there’s nothing like interviewing an author while you’re knee deep in their first novel. I’m now two chapters in because I read painfully slowly, but it’s an outstanding story, told by a brilliant artist, musician and teacher. Nugent has written for the Everyman Theatre, Newcastle’s Live Theatre and is a special adviser for Shakespeare North Playhouse. He is also a director at RiseUP CIC, where he uses his own life experiences to support prisons, schools, the long-term unemployed and those at risk of offending within the wider community.What to say about this book? It’s such a difficult one to review because there are so many layers to excavate in this story and they are so hard to convey, it is really a book you need to experience for yourself before you can understand what it is really about. In Ashleigh's book, the character is a rebel who soon gets into a fight, gets mugged and then arrested while just being 16. Aeon is desperate for something to change, he talks about ‘making something happen’ throughout the book and goes looking for adventure. He is on a ‘hero’s quest’ as described to him by his English teacher, who he clearly idolises as one person who has always defended and supported him in the face of a fairly hostile world. However, his quest for adventure gets him into serious trouble in Jamaica, a place completely alien, where he finds that the tough persona he has developed in Liverpool isn’t cutting it. A real ‘fish out of water’ story. Within a very short space of time, Aeon finds himself in trouble, he's stabbed, arrested, and put in juvenile detention, so yep, things aren't exactly going to plan....

My family and friends always said the story should be on TV and they all know just how determined I've been to make this happen. They aren't surprised, but extremely happy and proud. By the time I was 21 I still hadn’t shown my poems to anyone, so I went to St Helens College to meet people who knew about creative stuff. My mates, some of them still work the doors now, and one mate runs an MMA gym in St Helens. They weren’t into that, so I went to college. And there, I met Mak, he’s a musician, rapper and beat boxer. The audience coming want to be entertained. They want to laugh, they want to get angry, they want to get entertained, and they want to leave there going that was dead interesting. So I think I am going to develop it more as a play, because they don’t care whether I think it’s a play. They want to be entertained. Blends humour and introspection, poetry and the poignant' - Derek Owusu, author of the Desmond Elliott Prize-winning That Reminds MeHe travels with his (reluctant) cousin Increase who is eight years his senior. Increase has shunned his heritage after his father (Aeon's uncle) died in the 1981 riots. Jamaica is not kind to Aeon and within a matter of days he is mugged, stabbed, arrested and jailed. Whilst imprisoned, someone he had a run in with is wanting money, going after Increase to get it. A: I suppose there is that, but rather than writing a stage narrative I’m telling bits of stories from the book, and the links in between are me talking to the audience. Obviously it’s a show, but they’re getting some of my personality.

I’m not offended by that. I really appreciate people being honest because not only do I get to think through it and explain it somebody, but I also get to work through it in my own mind and question how I feel about these issues, and I get to keep studying and educating myself. I’ve not been to the Liverpool Literary Festival before and I can’t wait to tell my story on home turf and hopefully inspire a new generation of writers.” Festival Director, Professor Greg Lynall said: “We’re really pleased to have such an incredible line up of local authors on our programme for the festival this October.He said: "When it was happening I thought once I survive this I always wanted to be a writer. But I hated school and left with nothing. The whole education system and figures of authority were my enemy. The place was for lads 21 and under and I spent my 17th birthday there. There was no running water, toilets that don't flush." Read More Related Articles Travelling to Jamaica to further his personal journey, he finds himself, once again, unable to fit in as he's now treated as the "white boy" and realises that he's got a lot of fighting and growing up to do!