“I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.” – Kurt Vonnegut.
“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” - Kurt Vonnegut
'When a man puts his pen to paper and proceeds to print the result, he is attempting to convey his ideas. He presupposes the existence of a reader. It is therefore essential that he should arrange his ideas clearly, that he should state them so that they may be understood, and express them so that they may leave a lasting impression on the mind of the person to whom they are addressed. If he fails to achieve this, he has done only half of his work.' - Sir Charles Firth 1857-1936, 'Commentary on Macauley's History'.
Click on any of these titles above on the list below and you'll be taken to a unique page with a description of the book and how to purchase. The costs are low, the covers, presentation, formatting and pagination is all smart and delivery is always prompt. Each book has a unique structure and approach. No corners are cut in my quest for the best quality product, both in terms of how it looks and what or how it is portrayed. Click on BOOKS in the drop-down menu above and short video explanations and samples are available, possibly a review or two, support publicity and red-marked links to click to buy. But a note of caution: all my books are available exclusively via www.lulu.com throughout the world. Please avoid any of my books on Amazon. Because of a dispute I had with Amazon three years ago they are continuing to sell earlier, inferior versions of my books to unsuspecting buyers. Jeff Bezos and Amazon don't get rich by playing by the rules but I'm not wealthy or powerful enough to take them on. So stand up for the little guy.
They are ripping me off and I'm not getting any royalties.
Remember: it's Lulu or nothing!
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So welcome to the website officially and a little bit about me. I was born in Darlington, north east England in 1963. Apart from a few diversifications in my working life, I like to think of myself mostly as an all-round 'creative' - writer, director, poet, teacher, daydreamer - but what others think of me is up to them! Most of what I've done over the last four decades has come from my own imagination, my education, my training as an actor and teacher, my self-belief and the continents of input from an amazing array of talented people whom I've had the privilege or luck to have collaborated with over the last 40 years. Without other people, we're nothing. The Master Plan? Make the world a better place through art, showing not only how things are but how they could be? could be one definition. I wonder myself sometimes how I've managed to keep going with this dream I always had of being a dreamer. I think of teaching as an extension of creativity and my students over the years have, I hope, profited from my unorthodoxy, though it's put me in conflict with traditional approaches and in conflict with myself because I'm always seeking new ways to interpret and mirror reality, and robbed me of much applause.
I've written nineteen books and counting, compiled five volumes of twenty-nine theatre plays and one full-length film script. Sometimes a living, sometimes a hobby, sometimes a pain, but always a passion! Art can be seen as a kind of philosophy and different ideas can be explored, as I've discovered, via both traditional and experimental cultural platforms such as plays, poems, novels, acting, drama groups, youth theatre, film and video, theatre in education, ambient audio and also spoken word, poetry gigs, interviews and Shakespearean scenes, to name the most obvious. Like most artists (I presume) I hammered out a code of ethics to live and work by and I do my best to stick to those rules. I love writing, directing and sometimes acting and working with other like-minded people and it's a great way to make new friends. |
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For three years in the late 1980's I trained as an actor at the prestigious Royal Central School of Speech & Drama in London and today can count many 'famous' television actors and writers in film and theatre among my former peers. I loved the time I spent training with that team of diverse talents - it taught me to treat my output and myself with professionalism - but I disliked the solo, jobbing actor world once it finished and especially the business part of 'show business'. I thrived on teamwork and group creativity and really wanted to join the RSC to develop my craft as an actor but all my agent saw was £ signs. We parted company soon after so early on knew I'd have to travel my own route to preserve my self-respect. I suspected it would be a long and painful road and it has been; I tried for six years to suppress my creative urges but no, I had to undergo my forty days in the wilderness - it proved to be 'write or die trying'! Getting dressed up in costumes, pretending to be other people and speaking other writers' lines for a living seemed to me to be less interesting than being myself and writing about the world. I've since created innovative plays, shows, events, happenings, readings, performances, solo and with others. We don't get anywhere, that is make art, by copying other people. We have to be ourselves and it takes a kind of courage to strive for this ideal even when all around think you might be crazy!
Have I succeeded? Yes and no. It seems the quest is eternal, that's the whole point I suppose! Over the years I've acquired knowledge and hands-on experience through college courses, night school, correspondence with Max Stafford-Clarke and Edward Bond, an indefatigable search for expression, a couple of A-Levels, The Oxford English Dictionary, my French 'degree' from Nantes University in 2015, running two professional theatre companies in the UK, entertaining 100,000 people with my theatre work, giving young British actors Equity cards and solid experience, a ravenous appetite for English literature and theatre plays (which still sees me reading about 50 books a year) and new projects, always looking at ways to cross-fertilise art forms. I've written and 'made stuff happen' since I was a kid and will continue to do so. I currently live in Nantes, France and have been living and working here/there for 16 years. Click the menu titles at the top of this page to be taken on a journey into the fascinating world of Antony J Stowers, or not. Your choice. 
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The book cover for Plays Three is at the top of the page, the image from 'Space Jockey' in 2004. Then comes the covers of all my books, three photos: one of the theatre audience at the premier of my play X in Prague in August 2015 (that's me bottom left corner), the 'flowers photograph' and the one below it is the curtain call of the première the same play. The actor on my right is Maty Dio who was born Martina Maladi and changed sex a few years before this play. Martina and I were married in London in 1994 and divorced again in 1996 but stayed in contact. Next down on left is one-man show 'Gauguin's Ghost' which premiered in Pont-Aven Brittany in 2009 and below that responding to audience questions at a public reading in English of 'Unpoken' in Paris in 2017. Directing scenes from an homage to French film director Claude Chabrol in Nantes in 2022 and the poster for a charity gig in Nottingham UK in May 2022 performing/reading poems for a live audience. Down the page on the right is the original artwork by Paul Dillon of my first serious attempt at writing in 1983. Surreal and abstract, 'The Waiting Room' featured a young Mark Gatiss. Mark was 16 and still in sixth form and I was 19 and on the dole. Below this is the poster for Shopping with Shakespeare adapted in French in Angers in 2008. more details of the concept are in the drop-down menu at the top of the page under THEATRE. Below that and left is a review from 2006 when my play 'X' played in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The flyer from my first professional TIE company The Northern Line from 1998 is under that. About 100,000 young people saw my work over a 10 year period. Right is a photo of me in Paris in 2015 and left is a review in a French paper from 2013 when I performed my one-man shows 'Colours' and 'Confessions of a rock n roll star' in French. Below is myself and James Purefoy in Henry V in 1987 and below that the poster for my adaptation of 'Cyrano de Bergerac' from 1999, the poster for 'Confessions' and 'Colours' below that, both in French. Left: one of my most popular English TIE shows 'Mr Gaston' promoting French language in English schools - 101 performances in three years!
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