Jack O'Donnell is from Dalmuir, Scotland. Over the years he's tried his hand at just about everything, from washing dishes to mental health care, monitoring elections to joining floorboards, editing to surveying traffic, care work to lugging bricks.

And while accumulating all that life experience Jack has also been pursuing a love for the written word on ABCtales.com, where he's a generous contributor to the community, a competition-winner and a prized editor.

Lily Poole was written as a serial on ABC, the chapters short and action-packed, tailored to online readers who kept him in check when the novel showed any sign of breaking pace.