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June 24, 2004updated 17 May 2007 11:30am

Farmers Weekly journalist has first novel published

By Press Gazette

between writing features for Farmers Weekly to complete his first novel, Stag.

The book is published in paperback by Piatkus on 8 July and Relf has been signed up to write a second.

He said: “It’s taken me about 10 years to write, off and on. I started it when I was at university and I’ve picked it up every couple of years since – it’s probably been about three years’ work in total.”

After sending a synopsis to a number of publishers, Relf was finally picked up by Piatkus, which paid him a £3,000 advance.

He said: “Stag is a dark and hopefully funny novel following the fortunes of a young man with an alcohol problem on a stag weekend.

“I wanted to write about the topical issue of binge drinking and, in particular, the grey line between social drinking and problem drinking – exploring it from the perspective of someone who’s slipping across that line. It deals with a serious issue and is aimed at a more grown-up market than recent lad-lit books.”

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