Dominic Bell has recently taken voluntary redundancy from the offshore oil industy and is now trying to build a new career as a writer, while also dabbling in coding and first world war naval history. He holds qualifications in geology, computing, maritime history and creative writing. Hull-based, he has been trying to learn the guitar without much success for many years, likes travel when it is not to work and enjoys walking and drinking real ale.
Reading has always been Dominic's main recreation, early favourites being the Biggles books of Captain W E Johns and the William books of Richmal Crompton. From these he moved on to Alistair Maclean's thrillers, the detective stories of Agatha Christie, and the Saint books of Leslie Charteris. The Lensman series by E E 'Doc' Smith introduced him to science fiction. P G Wodehouse brought romance and humour into his life, as later did Terry Pratchett. His father's service in the Royal Air Force and his own time in the Royal Naval Unit at university left him with a love of military fiction, ranging from the technothrillers of Tom Clancy to the Napoleonic stories of Bernard Cornwall. A preference to have the killing diluted with humour and romance led him to the Ramage stories of Duldley Pope, the Aubrey-Maturin stories of Patrick O'Brian, and the Flashman stories of George MacDonald Fraser. Science fiction remains an interest, and he follows David Weber's Honor Harrington series amongst others, while for fantasy he reads the October Daye and Incryptid series from Seanan McGuire. To be honest he reads almost anything as long as it is not too brutal or depressing.
For some years Dominic has been working on a series of novels about a naval officer in the first world war, latterly producing a first draft of each one during NaNovWriMon. So far none of these have actually been completed but as relief from writing them and for the achievement of actually finishing something, he started to enter writing competitions in 2015. So far he has won seven Writing Magazine short story competitions and been the runner up in six more. In addition he has won two Writers' Forum flash competitions, been the runner up in two more and had another sixty stories shortlisted in other competitions in various competitions. Since leaving the oil industry he has also been working on a story of offshore life, provisionally titled Blowout.