The twelve short stories in Behind the Wall are set in the North-East of England. They move from extolling the redemptive power of running (‘The Running Boy’ and ‘The New Track Suit’), to others with an ethereal and lyrical quality (‘The Dream’ and ‘Danny and Christ’); ‘Behind the Wall’ evokes lost love while ‘Mother Teresa of Jarrow’, ‘Elsie’ and ‘Elsie Rides Again’ are awash with black humour.  

Tom Kelly was born in Jarrow and now lives further up the Tyne at Blaydon. He has had a varied career from his first job in a Jarrow shipyard Time-Office; to a song writing contract and writing the BBCTV musical documentary Kelly, with Alan Price. He has had a great deal of work produced by the Customs House, South Shields, a venue he regards as home, with six full-length stage plays, including I Left My Heart in Roker Park which has been produced four times. Tom’s musicals include: The Dolly Mixtures, Geordie, Tom & Catherine, Dan Dare, The Machine Gunners (all but Geordie written with John Miles). In 2016 he was a runner-up in the Journal Culture Awards, in the Writer of the Year category, for Geordie: The Musical, produced by the Customs House in 2015 and reprised in October 2017 at the Tyne Theatre & Opera House, Newcastle. 2016 also saw his eighth poetry collection Spelk published, and subsequently reprinted, by Red Squirrel Press. Of late his poetry has appeared in a number of UK magazines and in the anthology Land of Three Rivers: The Poetry of North-East England. He is currently Writer-in-Residence at the Word, South Shields. 

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