After achieving a first class honours degree and MA in history, he taught at the universities of Northumbria, Glasgow and Manchester and co-wrote a seminal text on British medieval seals, published on both sides of the Atlantic. He then retrained as a secondary school teacher and worked in and around Newcastle for several years.

He currently teaches creative writing at both the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University.

He recently co-edited Night Train 5,  an anthology of prose and poetry and is this year's short fiction judge for The New Writer magazine.

Andrew’s first novel, A Portrait of the Arsonist as a Young Man, is published by bluechrome in the autumn of 2008.

His first collection of short stories, Kafka's Chair and Other Bad Luck Stories,  will be published by bluechrome in 2009.