Keep It in the Family

John Marrs was born in Northamptonshire, England, in 1970. At a young age, he developed an interest in writing, and this passion solidified when he struggled with every high school exam except those related to writing exercises. After failing his Math General Certificate of Secondary Education (GSCE) four times, he took those results as a sign to pursue a career in journalism. Following high school graduation, Marrs began writing for local newspapers in Northampton, Daventry, and Peterborough before moving to London, where he went on to write for many national publications, including the News of the World’s Sunday magazine, The Guardian, and Daily Express. He then worked as a journalist for 20 years and spent his career interviewing celebrities for national newspapers and magazines before trying his hand at writing fiction.

When asked how he began writing novels, Marrs asserts that his literary career began rather by accident, when he read an article in a magazine that sounded like a great concept for a story and impulsively began writing the story he wanted to read. It eventually became When You Disappeared, but the manuscript was rejected by 80 agents and publishers before eventually gaining publication in 2017 (“Bestselling Author John Marrs on Writing About Darker Complex Issues.” The Creative Mental Health Charity Poets IN, 2018). Marrs has historically been vocal about his eclectic journey from self-publishing to traditional publishing in the hopes of encouraging other writers. He has described his publishing experience with his first novel, When You Disappeared, as being especially interesting because of its unexpected success, for the novel progressed from a self-published form on Amazon and eventually caught the attention of an established publisher, after which it sold 350,000 copies. It has also been translated into 35 languages and in 2021, was adapted into an eight-part Netflix series (“Bestselling Author“). His subsequent projects, including Keep It in the Family, have also met with considerable success.