Martin J. Goodman (born in Leicester in 1956) is an English journalist and writer. Early life Martin Goodman went to Loughborough Grammar School. He is Emeritus professor at the University of Hull, where he was Professor Creative Writing 2009-2019. Before moving to Hull, Martin Goodman was lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Plymouth. He completed his PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in 2007, and now teaches at the University of Hull, where he was appointed Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the Philip Larkin Centre for Poetry and Creative Writing in 2009. Career Martin Goodman writes both fiction and nonfiction. His most recent book of nonfiction is Client Earth: Building an Ecological Civilization, May 2017, from Scribe Publications. This tells the story of ecolawyers saving the planet, and was co-written with his husband the environmental lawyer James Thornton. They presented the work at the Sydney Opera House's Antidote Festival in September 2017. They were interviewed about the book on BBC Parliament's BOOKtalk in July 2017. Granta Magazine profiled their life and work together in an interview in July 2017. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Hull. He is the publisher of Barbican Press. Recent novels are J SS Bach, Wrecking Ball Press, 2018, and Forever Konrad, PS Publishing, 2017. Martin Goodman once taught on the distance learning MA at Lancaster University, where he worked on the British Council Crossing Borders scheme as a mentor to writers in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Goodman's novel On Bended Knees (Macmillan, 1992) was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award (won by Jeff Torrington's Swing Hammer Swing). His next books published were all non-fiction, often on a spiritual theme and published at first in America. He wrote a biography of Mother Meera, In Search of the Divine Mother (1998). His 2001 book I Was Carlos Castaneda recounted his experiences with shamanism and the plant hallucinogen ayahuasca. On Sacred Mountains (2002) is a round-the-world travelogue and journey of spiritual awakening; The Guardian review stated: "Either an important spiritual document, or an admonitory example of the effects of oxygen deprivation." His next novels were Slippery When Wet (2006), from Transita in Oxford; Look Who's Watching (2011) from Caffeine Nights, and Ectopia (2014) from Barbican Press. He started Barbican Press with the slogan "Writing from the Discomfort Zone", with a list of novels written as PhDs inspired by his