I love writing. It provides me with something I need," says Kevin Brooks, a new, distinctive voice among young adult authors in the U.K. "From very early in my life I saw myself as a creative person. I've always written poems, short stories and especially songs."

But for a long time this endearing self-belief was not enough. It was only when his Martyn Pig was published in the U.K. in May 2002 that Brooks could finally feel that he had fulfilled his ambition. Brooks's debut is a black comedy about an unlucky boy who accidentally kills his father and then sorts out the complicated aftermath in a series of tragicomic scenes. Since its publication, he's published two more books (all three have been published by Chicken House in the U.K., which Scholastic publishes as an imprint in the U.S.), won a string of awards and nominations in England, and has been hailed as one of the new breed of crossover authors here in the States. Now, when he says with a mixture of diffidence and confidence, "I've always thought that being a writer would suit me," he can know he was right.

Tall, shaven-headed, with a single earring, Brooks, who wears combat pants and a loose-fitting hooded top, looks a bit like the teenagers to whom his books have given such a striking voice. In fact, he feels comfortable among teens since, as he says, "I feel the same as I did when I was 15. I don't have to try and imagine what it's like to be Martyn Pig. Those feelings are still right at the surface."

Brooks may be young at heart, but he has a sharpness of focus when talking about his writing, how he achieves it and what it means to him. From PW's visit with Brooks at his home in Manningtree, Essex, it becomes clear that the local farming countryside and muddy, windswept seashore on which Manningtree lies provides the distinctive setting for all three of his novels. His house is one of a comfortable estate of new houses just—but only just—big enough for both Brooks and his wife, Sue, to work at home. It's quiet and still, with only the dog to disrupt the well-defined routines of Brooks the writer, and it's a million miles away from the teenage lives that Brooks writes about and speaks to so surely.

The roots of Brooks's ability to reach his audience would appear to lie in his long apprenticeship, which began with a different kind of writing altogether. The middle of three brothers, Brooks, who was born on the outskirts of Exeter in 1959, was a bright schoolboy who won a scholarship to the local fee-paying school.

This kind of scholarship moved Brooks from his local friends. He joined a new community but felt that he never belonged—a feeling that has never left him. "I was always good at hiding, not belonging," he says. These days he can see it as useful and draw on it for his writing. But when he was at school, it meant he always felt on the fringes of things, until around the age of 16. "I got into music just when punk was exploding," he explains. "We formed the first West Country punk group, and I wrote the lyrics."

Brooks hated the violence of punk music but stayed with the music world. After a fairly uncommitted time at university, where he studied a little and wrote music a lot, he hung around on the fringes of the music business, writing lyrics influenced by David Bowie, Iggy Pop and the Velvet Underground. His voice still catches when he touches on Lou Reed, revealing a passion that makes it easy to believe him when he says, "I almost got there, but not quite. The music world is very pushy and I'm not. You have to push yourself into situations to get recognition."

The legacy of that life lives on: there's a Fender 12-string acoustic guitar, banjo and electric guitar propped in the corners of his study, which he admits he still plays. His long immersion in the music world not only gave Brooks the opportunity to write a lot; it also provided much of the authenticity for his books. He puts much of his originality and the particular quality of his writing down to the fact that "I'm still writing like I was for my songs."

A New Beginning

When Martyn Pig was published (January 2002 in the U.K.; March 2002 in the U.S.), its first-person narrative was hailed as a refreshing and original voice. The novel was favorably reviewed by both adults and children alike and collected a handful of awards, including the Brandford Boase Award for a first novel of distinction, and a place on the shortlist for the Carnegie Medal in the U.K. It was the kind of start to a career that authors dream of but rarely achieve. Not surprisingly, it has changed Brooks's life.

"My daily life is a million times better," he says. "I do about six to seven hours a day of writing, broken up into two sessions between the afternoon and the evening. I like to get really immersed in what I'm doing; even if I'm not writing, I'm thinking about the book in my head. I just love it."

Brooks's first book was followed quickly by his second title, Lucas, published in January 2003 in the U.K. and March 2003 in the U.S. Set in the Essex countryside, Lucas is the story of a dramatic love affair that blossoms despite a climate of intolerance and prejudice. Though, like Martyn Pig, Lucas is about outsiders—both Caitlin and Lucas, the mysterious boy she falls in love with, are not from within their tight-knit island community—Brooks shows development in constructing a more substantial plot and in his insights into his female character. Lucas, too, was much praised and picked up nominations for the Guardian Children's Book Prize and the newly established Book Trust Teenage Prize. In the U.S. it was the first-ever Barnes & Noble's Teen Discover title.

Kissing the Rain, Brooks's third novel, followed almost as swiftly. It was published in January 2004 in the U.K. and will be out next month in the U.S. Again, Brooks draws on his own surroundings for the background—this time a local bypass which snakes around Colchester, a small town just a few miles from where he lives—that provides the crime scene. In Kissing the Rain, narrator Mike (Moo) witnesses a road rage incident, which sets off the chain of events that propel him from his pedestrian and uneventful life into considerable danger. Brooks gives articulate expression to the inarticulate, as he once again gets inside the head of an alienated teenager and recognizes that outsiders make good moral choices, too.

With the recurrence of these "outsider" characters, it would be easy to assume that Brooks's own experiences lie at their heart, but though Brooks can identify with them, he makes it clear that the chaos that surrounds his characters is not a reflection of his own life. Instead, it comes from his sensitivity about others. "I know what goes on in the world—from observation," he says. "I notice kids in schools who feel off to the edge of things. I put part of myself into that. Life in poorer childhoods rarely gets into books, but it does exist and it needs to be written about."

The Slow Climb

Success didn't come swiftly or easily for Brooks. "I'd always said to myself that if I got to a certain age—and that age kept changing—I'd give up [my life in music]. In the end I got fed up of living in squats and bedsits and I'd met Sue. I got a steady job so that we could afford somewhere decent to live. Because I was more settled, I was writing more."

Not that Brooks had by then found what kind of writing he could do best. "I was writing lots of experimental prose—or lazy prose. Sometimes experimental prose is just that you haven't bothered to develop a plot." He gives the impression that his writing was just fizzling out. For a short time, he tried his hand at painting, then took an "unexciting but regular job" with the post office. He eventually took a redundancy offer and set down seriously to write.

"It was my first attempt at a full-length piece of fiction," he says. "I had a vague idea—the story was set on Mersea Island, and the love story at the heart of it was a prototype of Lucas. It came from one of the notebooks of stories I'd jotted down over the years, but I had no plan and no idea where I was going. I got through two big notebooks writing it down and then two things happened: the story ran out and I ran out of money."

Brooks's writing career might have ended there before it had really begun, if not for Sue. Sue's belief in him, Brooks says, is absolute and she has always been willing to support him, financially as well as emotionally.

But Brooks did have to go back to work. He began selling tickets at the local railway station but, he says, "About that time I thought, now is the time to become a writer. It wasn't as much of a 'eureka' moment as that sounds, but it was the beginning of a more formal phase." Brooks had never thought about writing for children and was still casting about for what kind of story to write when he realized that "if you write for younger people you don't have to write fiddly, unnecessary prose."

He was backed up in his hunch by Sue, who had always said "keep things simple." It was a turning point for Brooks. "When I finished it [his first manuscript, which became Martyn Pig] I was quite pleased with it." Brooks is honest enough to admit that "just finishing it helped." It gave him a real sense of achievement.

In addition, Brooks had also learned something about his writing. "I realized that the story is the most important thing, then you can add your own fiddly bits but not ram them down someone's throat." He smiles when he says, "I was trying to write a cross between Joyce and Dashiell Hammett or Rimbaud and Chandler when I found this new way." And this new way worked. Sue, who is always Brooks's first reader, liked it, and Brooks began the lengthy process of submitting the story to publishers.

He didn't have an agent and got a string of rejections, which he shrugged off—"I was used to that from the music business," he says. But then he got a phone call from Barry Cunningham, founder and editorial director of Chicken House. "I'm not an excitable person," Brooks says, "but from the time I had the first phone call from Barry I knew my life would change. It was a huge relief, as I knew I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my life not being able to know I'm a writer."

The long haul has been worth it. Brooks is now in full flow. "I've just finished my fourth book, a story about love and intoxication, and now I'm starting work on a screenplay for Martyn Pig. When that's done," he says matter-of-factly, "I'll get on with book number five." Clearly he is now the writer he has always thought he would be. The prize short-listings, author tours and easy friendship with fellow authors such as Melvin Burgess are the badges to prove it.

Most important are the responses he gets from his readers. "The letters and e-mails I get are incredibly nice and—dare I say it—very touching," he says. "I get kids telling me how much they loved the books, that they're the best books they've ever read, that they could really identify with the characters, that they felt as if they could live inside the pages... all kinds of very flattering things."

Brooks is genuinely moved by his effect on readers. "I think the thing I appreciate the most is when someone tells me that something I've written really means something to them. It's so wonderful to know that the stuff that's alive in my head has come alive in theirs. It somehow completes the whole reading/writing thing."

Brooks is almost embarrassed when he concludes, "I know it's a bit of a cliché, but when I hear all these things from young people who've read my books, it really does make it all worthwhile."