T. M. John is a British author whose Malladay series explores a hidden eighth day of the week, a secret space between Sunday and Monday where ancient magic still stirs.

The idea for Malladay was born during cold, dark winter evenings, told aloud to his children as stories to distract them on the twenty-minute walk home after lessons at the local swimming pool. What began as a simple tale to keep spirits up slowly grew, over nine years, into a fully realised world rooted in Celtic mythology, Arthurian legend, and Britain’s myth-laden landscapes.

A graduate of Trinity College, where he studied Classics, John draws on early medieval sources and folklore to bridge the ancient and the modern, weaving stories of courage, loyalty, and the quiet persistence of wonder.

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​Early influences

John spent his childhood in boarding school from the early 1970s through to the mid-1980s. Books became both refuge and escape. Stories such as C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit offered worlds that felt warmer, freer, and more hopeful than the rigid routines of school life. That early experience of stepping through a story into another place left a lasting mark, shaping his belief that imagination can be both a sanctuary and a way through.

For today’s readers

Written for middle-grade readers, John hopes to offer children the same opportunity he once found in books: a way to step beyond the everyday and escape into a world of wonder, mystery, and possibility.

Now based near Henley-on-Thames, he believes that the best stories, like the best myths, speak to all ages.

And when he is not writing, he can usually be found on the water, sailing.