Author David Coventry: On arriving at things later in life

Published: March 14, 2021, 9:07 p.m.

David Coventry always knew he wanted to be a writer - but says, like many things in his life, it took a while for him to get there. His award-winning debut novel The Invisible Mile, published in 2015, re-imagines the grueling race undertaken by an Australasian team competing in the 1928 Tour de France. He followed it up with Dance Prone, published last year, which explores the post-hardcore punk scene in 1980s America. David drew on his own love of music for the novel: he taught himself to play the guitar in his late teens and worked as a sound engineer before taking himself off to university at the age of 27. He joins Kathryn to talk about finishing up his later work, which draws on his experiences of ME-Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.