Olli Tooley

Olli started writing websites for fun and ended up creating a website about his Grandfather Frank Kingdon-Ward who wrote 25 books and innumerable articles in his lifetime. That website led to a small paid writing commission a 1,200 word article for "The Great Explorers" Robin Hanbury-Tenison. He began writing a story for his children which morphed into a completely different book from the original concept. Meanwhile, he wrote and published "Time Tunnel to Londinium, the first in the "Time Tunnel" series, also written for one of his children. These are short stories for children with an equal mix of fun and education, the first two books are set in contemporary London and Roman Londinium, the third, "Time Tunnel at the Seaside" is set in North Devon and features WWII, and the fourth visits Anglo-Saxon England on a school trip in East Anglia. In 2017 Olli finally published "Children of the Wise Oak" under the author name Oliver J. Tooley (this was to distinguish the older content from the "Time Tunnel" books). This, and the second in the series, "Women of the Wise Oak" are set in the 1st century BCE and feature history, overlaid with fantasy from a Celtic perspective. He created Blue Poppy Publishing for this series, and is now publishing books by four other authors as well. His most recent book series features a cool suave feline detective, Felix Whiter, who works for Animal Intelligence Services, or A.I.S. His boss is a female mouse called M, and there are a host of other characters. It is VERY silly. Olli lives in North Devon with his family, having moved there from London in 2011, where he presents regular local radio shows featuring unsigned bands and local authors, writes, gets involved in local politics, and sometimes helps his wife care for their kids.