Who Is This Man?
Neil McFarlane hails from the UK but since childhood has led a roving life. He spent over ten years in Asia, mainly Taiwan and China, where he worked as an English teacher and later in the Chinese film industry, in diverse roles such as subtitling, editing, dubbing, marketing, and film festival liaison.
He studied literature at BA and MA level and more recently has turned his hand to writing, mostly children's books. He was an honoree at the 2014 London Book Festival for his collection A Month of Bedtime Stories. He previously worked as Assistant Editor at Hamilton & Co. Publishers (now defunct) in Yorkshire, and in January 2020 took on editorial duties with Meryton Press.
In April, shortly after narrating The Child, Neil started a journey that finished in June. He camped wild for 52 nights in a row and walked about 500 miles from Swansea to Edinburgh in a very meandering way. Yes, it was a walking journey! Can you imagine? He said he wrote a lot of the short stories for his most recent children's collection during the trip. He had a small solar panel on the back of his rucksack which charged his phone. Neil had a pot and stove to cook with and a water purifier for drinking out of rivers and lakes when he was in the wilds. This was his first long trip, and after a couple of days he could hardly walk, his joints were so stiff and sore. By the end of it, he said he was as strong as an ox! (A small ox.) Sometimes maddening, sometimes tedious, sometimes lonely, it was overall a wonderful experience, and he wants to do something similar every year until he is too old.
Now back in his home country, he currently resides in Macclesfield, on the edge of the Peak District and a stone's throw from Lyme Park, the setting for Pemberley in the 1995 television series of Pride and Prejudice.
Neil narrated Jan Hahn’s The Child, and many of us fell in love with his velvet voice. Next Neil was the voice for Consequences by C. P. Odom., and his latest audiobook was Suzan Lauder’s The Mist of Her Memory.
As mentioned, the most recent Meryton Press job for Neil is editor. He is currently in the process of editing the manuscript, “Determination” by C.P. Odom. Soon after Neil started editing, the pandemic broke out. That considerably slowed down the process on his end. Neil was working in a hospital that was short-handed. During the coronavirus outbreak, he worked long hours and many days, until the hospital was finally able to get more help. That alleviated some of the pressure on him and allowed him to get back to editing Colin’s book.
This man wears many hats, and we are fortunate to have him working with us at Meryton Press. Thank you, Neil Roy McFarlane.
