Best-selling author, Nick Toczek, is a full-time professional writer and performer who currently works variously as a poet, magician, storyteller, puppeteer, novelist, stand-up comic, radio DJ, creative writing tutor, journalist, librettist, advertising copy-writer and political researcher. He�s published over thirty books and has made more than 30,000 public appearances. His poetry books alone have sold over quarter of a million copies.
As a writer in schools, he�s worked with pupils from some 4,000 schools. He also works regularly as a performer at festivals and family events, in libraries and prisons, on radio and TV, in colleges and residential homes, in pubs, clubs and community centres.
He continues to take on new projects. In recent years, as well as pursuing his regular work, he�s spent a fortnight as visiting writer at a school in Beijing; has written pantomimes and muscials; presents his weekly show on BCB; had a poem featured in an award-winning TV advert (for Prudential); was the featured writer in a short BAFTA-nominated BBC/Channel 4 TV programme for schools; and � after a decade of writing primarily for children - has returned to also writing and performing for adults.
He�s currently touring with two one-man shows. Nick Toczek�s Million-Miles-An-Hour Show is for children and families and features magic, poems, stories, puppets, comedy and plenty of audience interaction and participation. The other, A Nice Night Out With An Eggshell Blond, is a brand-new show for adults. And he's also gigging regularly as one half of the duo Two Shaven Heads (with Bradford Nu-Soul singer-songwriter and keyboard-player, Imani Hekima).
In �98, The Dragons Cantata, composer Malcolm Singer�s setting of some of Nick�s dragon poems, was performed at London�s Royal Albert Hall with a full symphony orchestra and an 800-strong combined schools choir. Nick and Malcolm�s new Football Cantata is to be premiered at The Barbican in London in Jan. �04. They�re also commissioned to write a third cantata for Rochdale Music Festival �05. Meanwhile, in Autumn �04, Golden Apple will publish Dragons! The Musical, a play-script by Nick set around songs from the cantata.
Nick is married with two teenage children, lives in Bradford, breeds lizards (bearded dragons� what else?!), buys far too many items on Ebay, and is a non-smoking vegetarian.
BOOKS AND RECORDINGS BY NICK TOCZEK
Rough Pub (Not-a-Roity, Autumn �05) � CD (with booklet) of performance poems (comic and serious) for adult readers/listeners.
Cinderella and Her Football Fella (Golden Apple, Autumn �05) � pantomime: 2 books (script + songbook) + CD.
Dragons! The Musical (Golden Apple, Spring �05) � musical: 2 books (script + songbook) + CD.
Dragons! (Macmillan Children�s Books, Jan �05) � dragon poems: trilogy of past 2 books + new collection.
Selfish Men (Not-a-Rioty, Jan. �04) � CD (with booklet) of performance poems (about male attitudes) for adult readers/listeners.
Group of Heroes (Skrev Press, Jan. �04) � novella for adult readers.
Sleeping Beauty�s Dream (Golden Apple, Sept. �03) � pantomime: 2 books (script + songbook) + CD.
Kick It! (Macmillan Children�s Books, �02) � football poems.
Number Parade (LDA, �02) � poems about nos.1-100 (21 by Nick, 20 each by 4 other poets).
Can Anyone Be As Gloomy As Me? (Hodder Wayland �00) � poems for young readers, about feeling sad.
The Dragon Who Ate Our School (Macmillan Children�s Books, �00) � dragon poems (originally published as Dragons)
Never Stare at a Grizzly Bear (Macmillan Children�s Books, �00) � animal poems.
Dragons & Gladiators (Bexley Centre for Music & Dance, �99) � CD of Dragons Cantata (live at Royal Festival Hall), words: Nick Toczek, music: Malcolm Singer.
Let Music Live (Surrey Youth Music & Performing Arts, �99) � CD of Dragons Cantata (live at Royal Albert Hall).
The Wreckage (Redbeck Press, �98) � poems for adult readers.
Dragons Everywhere (Macmillan Children�s Books, �97) � 2nd collection of dragon poems.
Dragons (Macmillan Children�s Books, �95) � dragon poems (Nick�s first book for children).
The Life of Bierley (Yorkshire Arts Circus, �95) � non-fiction: portrait of a Bradford �problem� estate (w/Alex Krysinski).
Slaphead Wrote Some Poems (Hybrid Press, �95) � poems (for adults + teenagers).
The Bigger Tory Vote (AK Press, �91) � non-fiction: investigative research into far-right of UK Conservative Party.
The Meat Boutique (PB Publications, �91) � political lyrics and performance poetry.
The Private Crimes of Nick Toczek (Amazing Colossal Press, �89) � short pieces of quirky fiction.
The Meat Boutique (Acrimony Tapes, �88) � cassette LP of 37 performance poems.
InTOCZEKated (Bluurg Records, �87) � 12� LP of 11 songs (singer/lyricist: Nick, music: various bands).
Fish Fox Peaches & Pig (Purple Heather Press, �87) � experimental poems and prose.
More to Hate� (Martyrhate Records, �86) � 12� EP of 4 songs, 2 w/The Burial (skinhead band), 2 w/Spectre (reggae band).
Nick Toczek�s Ulterior Motives (Bluurg Tapes �85) � cassette LP of 19 performance poems and short stories.
The Britanarchist Demo (Bluurg Tapes, �83) � cassette LP of performance poems + 3 songs, w/the band To Be Continued.
Roll�n�Roll Terrorism (Aquila Publishing Co., �81) � performance poems, lyrics and short prose pieces.
Y�Gotta Shout/Another Lover (Motive Music, �79) � 7� single of 2 songs w/own band, Ulterior Motives.
Lies (Rivelin Press, �79) � poems.
The Credible Adventures of Nick Toczek (Kawabata Press, �79) � fact-based fiction: short prose pieces.
Complete Strangers Tell You Nothing (Xenia Press, �79) � single poem, illustrated.
Acts of Violence (Wayzgoose Press, �79) � short fiction: bizarre tales.
God Shave the Queen (Aquila Publishing Co., �75) � short humorous poems, mostly puns.
Autobiography of a Friend (Aquila Publishing Co., �75) � experimental novella.
Malignant Humour (Aquila Publishing Co., �75) � short humorous poems, mostly puns.
Evensong (Sceptre Press, �74) � single poem.
The Book of Numbers (Aquila Publishing Co., �73) � poems and short prose pieces, charting break-up of a relationship.
Because the Evenings (Aquila Publishing Co., �72) � early poems.
ANTHOLOGIES EDITED BY NICK TOCZEK
The Dog Ate My Bus Pass (Macmillan Children�s Books, Jan. �04) � poems that are excuses (w/Andrew Fusek Peters).
Toothpaste Trouble (Macmillan Children�s Books, �02) � poems from waking up to bedtime (for younger readers).
Join In� Or Else! (Macmillan Children�s Books, �00) � participatory poems.
The Spirit of Bradford (Redbeck Press, �97) � poems about living in Bradford (w/David Tipton).
Melanthika (L.W.M. Publications, �77) � the UK�s first collection of pan-Caribbean writing (w/Yann Lovelock & Philip Nanton).
SOME PRESS QUOTES ABOUT NICK TOCZEK
On his performance poetry:
�The most exciting and visual performer we have this side of Benjamin Zephaniah� � NME.
�The greatest success was without doubt �Mr Dynamite�, the Englishman Nick Toczek whose performance of all-round writings exploded like a firework.� � German daily Neue Presse (reviewing an appearance at Frankfurt Bookfair)
On his stand-up comedy:
�See him if you can. He�s brilliant.� � The Stage.
On his children�s poetry books:
�A combination of straight-hitting humour and verbal dexterity. It is the well-honed work of a performance poet � crackling with rhythms, raps, rhymes and repetitions that beg to be read aloud and savoured for sound as well as amusing storylines.� - The Times Educational Supplement.
On his poetry for adult readers:
�A powerful writer who spins words into images with such seeming ease� He uses language in ways others can never hope to emulate� � U.S. Small Press Review.
�Toczek is bitter, disturbing and political. His language gets harder and more effective with each publication.� � The Guardian.
On his 2004 novel, Group of Heroes:
�A more interesting writer than most� an anti-novel, eschewing such bourgeois expectations as plot, continuity and coherence. It does it rather well, too. The pleasures come from Toczek�s linguistic mischief� and a playful demolition of the relationship between the narrator and his characters� something of a literary accomplishment�� � The Big Issue.
On his political writing:
�You should read Nick Toczek�s The Bigger Tory Vote� quite simply the best available guide to one of the most insidious forces in British political life.� � The Edinburgh Review.
On his editing:
�One of the liveliest (and) perhaps the most immediately accessible of small magazines.� � The Sunday Times (on Nick�s literary magazine, The Little Word Machine).
�Rapidly becoming one of the best rock magazines and certainly the one I look forward to reading.� � Radio One (the DJ John Peel on Nick�s music fanzine, The Wool City Rocker).
Nick Toczek, New House, 108 Ashgrove, Greengates, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD10 0BP, England.
Phone: 01274-610275. Email: slaphead@1000rpm.freeserve.co.uk
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