Biography

Gavin Scott Hetherington was born on May 7, 1992 in Gateshead, United Kingdom. Gavin is an award-winning author specialising in horror and fantasy. Gavin's first book, Remnants of the Damned, is the first in the Abyssal Sanctuary series and was self-published on October 9, 2013.

Before Abyssal Sanctuary in 2013, Gavin had a short story published in Telling T.A.L.E.S.: Adventures Into Fiction Vol. 1 in 2006. During a nationwide competition in the United Kingdom, students in Secondary School could submit their short stories to be included in an anthology book of short stories. Gavin's story was picked and published on November 30, 2006.

Gavin has two siblings - an older sister and a younger brother - making him the middle child. His older sister has a daughter, Niamh, who was born in January 2011, and a son, Kai, born February 2015. Gavin has a close relationship with his family.

Gavin began work at Greggs the Bakers on July 10, 2010. Beginning work at the store situated in the Metro Centre Red Mall, Gavin moved to the Gateshead Interchange branch in July 2012 and worked there part-time. Through Greggs, Gavin managed to participate in several events to raise money for charity. The most notable was the sponsored sea dip in November 2012 that was broadcast on Children in Need and the documentary series, Greggs: More Than Meats the Pie in 2013. Gavin also works as a freelance writer for entertainment website SpoilerTV and is a volunteer at Reach Out Volunteers.

Gavin returned to learning the month before self-publishing his first book. Beginning September 2013, Gavin became a student at Westgate Community College. While there, he studied English Literature, English Language and Historical Studies. He received Distinctions for all of his English assignments (and one of his History assignments) and received the grades to enter University. Gavin became a student of Newcastle University starting September 2014. Gavin graduated with an English Literature degree in July 2017.

Gavin is a huge lover of television shows and movies, probably more so than books. Among his favourite television shows are Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Desperate Housewives, The Walking Dead, True Blood, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Grey's Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Revenge, Friends, The Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock, Pretty Little Liars, The Vampire Diaries, etc. The list literally goes on and on.

In terms of film, Gavin is obsessed with Blu-ray and has over one-thousand Blu-rays in his collection. Regarding Disney and Pixar films, Gavin's favourite Disney Animated Classic is The Little Mermaid and has become obsessed with Frozen since its release in 2013. Gavin also loves Finding Nemo, The Lion King, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Toy Story, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, etc. Basically every Disney Classic and Pixar Animated Film. Gavin also loves anime, particularly Studio Ghibli films where his favourites include Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo, The Secret World of Arrietty, Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away etc.

In other films, Gavin is a huge fan of the Harry Potter films having seen every single Harry Potter film in the cinema when they were released (but for some reason excluding Prisoner of Azkaban which he has lost sleep over). Gavin also loves Titanic, Avatar, The Avengers, the Pirates of the Caribbean films, The Wizard of Oz, and more. Gavin has a particular love for Marvel films.

Since Gavin is an avid reader as well as a writer, Gavin has also got a huge love for the Harry Potter books, which he has cited as his main inspiration for wanting to write. Gavin also grew up on R. L. Stine's original Goosebumps series. His other favourite books include the Hunger Games series, the Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries series, A Song of Fire and Ice series, the Percy Jackson series, and every Stephen King book.

Achievements


- Met Queen Elizabeth II (Queen of England) on May 7, 2002, Gavin's 10th Birthday. As part of his primary school, because it was his birthday, he got to attend the opening of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and shake her hand.
- Won short story competition and had his short story published in Telling T.AL.E.S. Adventures Into Fiction Vol. 1 in November 2006.
- Appeared in two issues of Charmed Magazine between 2007 and 2008.
- Appeared on the BBC show Children In Need, raising money for the charity in November 2012.
- Appeared in one episode of Greggs: More Than Meats the Pie in May 2013.
- Self-published his debut novel in October 2013 with Remnants of the Damned.
- Remnants of the Damned sells over 10,000 units on Amazon in February 2014.
- Nominated for two awards at the Dan Poynter's Global eBook Awards in April 2014, for Horror Fiction and Suspense Fiction.
- Made local headlines in The Journal and The Chronicle in April 2014 for his book award nominations.
- Appeared on local radio station BBC Newcastle Radio for a live interview about his book in April 2014.
- Helped fund RPG video game Shiness in June 2014, set for release on PC, PS4 and XBox One in 2015.
- Gavin is revealed as a finalist for two awards at the Readers' Favorite Book Awards, including Young Adult Horror and Supernatural Fiction in July 2014.
- Surpassed 4 million total views on YouTube in August 2014.
- Became a freelance writer and reviewer for SpoilerTV in August 2014.
- Gavin's first article on SpoilerTV was an advanced preview review of NBC's Bad Judge. The review trended all day and NBC got in touch with site creator to tell him they liked Gavin's preview.
- Gavin interviewed Maggie Friedman, the creator of Lifetime's Witches of East End and ABC's Eastwick, for SpoilerTV in August 2014. The interview was so popular that it was translated into different languages for fan websites and a Twitter campaign started to have Gavin interview Mädchen Amick, one of the stars from the show.
- Remnants of the Damned was revealed to have won Silver Place for Horror Fiction at the Dan Poynter's Global eBook Awards in August 2014.
- Remnants of the Damed won the Silver Medal for Young Adult Horror Fiction at the Readers' Favorite Book Awards in September 2014.
- Gavin began studying at Newcastle University in September 2014. The University is ranked in the top 1% of universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2014).
- Gavin's social media reach far exceeds 6 million by September 2014.
- Through his job at SpoilerTV, Gavin had a conference call with actress Melissa Joan Hart, best known as Sabrina Spellman in the hit show Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, on October 17, 2014.
- Gavin was invited to attend a press tour for the television network Syfy in October 2014 in Orlando, Florida. As a journalist, Gavin spent two days with the executives and talents of Syfy shows and original movies for dinners, bowling and Q&A panels.
- Gavin's first short story in almost ten years, The Christmas Fawn, was selected for publication in the NCLA Review newsletter in April 2015. Check out the newsletter here, and the excerpt of the short story here.
- Gavin's second novel, the sequel to Remnants of the Damned, titled Ashes of the Innocent, was published in October 2015.
- Was selected to be part of Wattpad's Fright Week, a week-long event for the run-up to Halloween. On October 28th, Gavin had a live Q&A with Wattpad.
- Gavin's second short story written at University, Goodnight, Tom, is published in the NCLA Review in the November 2015 newsletter. Check out the newsletter here, and the excerpt here.
- Ashes of the Innocent is nominated for Best Horror Fiction at the Global eBook Awards, like his first book, in January 2016.
- Was invited to be part of the second Winter Edition of the Wattpad Block Party by author Kelly Anne Blount. Including popular best-selling authors such as Christopher Pike, Gavin's post was featured on February 24, 2016. The Block Party became the best one yet, and has achieved over half a million reads.
- Remnants of the Damned exceeds 100,000 views on Wattpad on June 19, 2016.
- On July 6, 2016, Remnants of the Damned became a Wattpad HQ hand-picked featured story!
- Gavin reveals an exclusive excerpt from upcoming novelette, Fen of Stagnant Waters: A Ghost Story, in Kelly Anne Blount's Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition II. It's the second time Gavin has been a featured author in the event, and his post went live on August 4, 2016.
- All current Abyssal Sanctuary books have peaked in the Top 40 on Wattpad for Horror in August 2016.
- Has achieved over 21 million views on Google Plus by August 2016.
- Gavin appeared as a panellist in New York City at WattCon, alongside successful authors from Wattpad, as well as industry insiders and the people who work at Wattpad HQ. The event was co-hosted by Vic James and Kelly Anne Blount, and happened on October 1, 2016.
- Was a leading featured author in the anthology, Sharing Nightmares. The story 'Jack-in-the-Box' is published October 8, and also published in the Fright Bites anthology on Wattpad on November 12.
- Ghost story novella, Fen of Stagnant Waters, is made a Featured story on Wattpad on November 8, 2016.
- Appeared at the London WattCon and took over the official Wattpad snapchat, on December 3, 2016.
- Was made an official Wattpad Star on December 15, 2016.
- Was commissioned by Wattpad in February 2017 to write several new stories for an upcoming chat stories app, Tap.
- One of the stories written for Tap, 'The Babysitter', was translated into 9 different languages for international launches of the app. It also has over 16 million taps by May 2017. It was also made a 'Best of Tap' story.
- Commissioned to write a Tap story for Coachella in March 2017.
- Was interviewed by Wattpad for the official Wattpad Blog about writing for Tap. Was also asked to do an interview for The Ringer about Tap, in April 2017.
- Was published in an anthology featuring 16 of Wattpad's most popular writers. Convened by Kelly Anne Blount, Gavin contributed the short story 'Fawn' in the anthology, Snow: Stories of Forbidden Love. The e-book was published on May 9, 2017, with the paperback following a week later on May 16, 2017.
- On May 31, 2017, The Babysitter and Down the Hallway become two of the first ten stories on Tap to receive the sound feature.
- Joined the Tap Squad in June 2017.
- Commissioned to write a short story for the upcoming premiere of TNT's Will. Uploaded Sorrow's Calligraphy on July 10, 2017 as part of the promotional campaign.
- Asked to be part of Tap Originals in July 2017, and commissioned to write a sequel to The Babysitter for Tap.
- On July 25, 2017, Black Magic: A Little Mix Musical became a Featured story in Fanfiction on Wattpad.
- On August 31, 2017, it was revealed that Down the Hallway was shortlisted for a Tap Award at the 2017 Watty Awards.

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