Hi, I'm Mike Leaver... and welcome to my author website.

One of my main ambitions in 2026 - as well as hopefully publishing my 6th book - is to continue promoting and selling my existing 5 titles!

So, my agent/publicist Ian Spindley has already secured us many events, where readers - either new or existing - can see or meet me/us to discuss my unusual lifestyle and sample my 2 autobiographies and 3 saga novels.

Where possible, we prefer to hold 'in conversation with' events in which Ian and the audience ask me any questions they wish about my life, writing, and books - and I answer completely honestly!

For example, we hope up to 50 readers and guests will attend our event on Friday 9 January from 7-9pm at Prenteg Village Hall near my home in Porthmadog. Our presentation features a short film about my lorry-life, a 30-minute interview about my life in general, a refreshment interval, another short film about my potholing, and a further 30-minute interview about my travel troubles and death-defying misadventures over the years. Tickets are £8.50, including tea/coffee and cake, via Kath Keir at Tyddyn Mawr Tearoom.

To add to the huge amounts of promo work done so far about my lifestyle, writing, and books, we are excited to announce four more national media appearances in the next few months!

• Top freelance journalist Liz Perkins (Sunday Telegraph Night Editor) of South Wales/London recently interviewed me for 90 minutes for a newspaper/magazine feature she will write and place nationally.
• YouTube's 'Nomad Season' channel filmed a follow-update video to launch on Sunday 21 December (2025), which could easily beat the 1.2 million views since February of an introductory 'life in a lorry' video!
• A nationally-acclaimed, nature/wellbeing/journalling, podcast 'Writing With Purpose' by Anna Wooliscroft will feature me solely in January.
• The successful 'Beneath The Page' podcast by The Book Guild author Steve Couch and Sophie Beal will feature me in 2026.   

At each event I am naturally delighted to sell and personally dedicate/sign my Book Guild published books, and sometimes offer a good discount if you buy more than one title!

If any other book shops, book clubs, libraries, or community groups etc would like to host an event, then please contact Ian via this site - as I live offgrid in a lorry with no modern communications whatsoever!
 
Pictured with me is avid Literary Cat Books reader Annie Shortman at my adventure talk in Machynlleth in 2025.

Thanks ever so much to fellow author Andy Mullaney for enjoying my new book 'English, Solitaire, Cowboy, Cuckoo. . .' and giving it a 5-star review.
It means a great deal when anyone comments on my writing, but especially because Andy - an author, mentor, coach, public speaker, and cancer fighter from the West Midlands - is also an ambassador for our publisher Troubador Publishing / The Book Guild Ltd.
Andy says: “It’s one of a kind and that’s a fact. I guess it’s Mike's humility that draws me in, and the way that he tells his stories takes you with him to that point in time and that exact place.
Mike is one of the last great adventurers this country has produced – someone who takes on a challenge simply because it’s there, often without any plan, preparation, or thought for his own safety, recovery, or return. He embodies a certain eccentricity that is endearing and makes you want to cheer him on.
Mike has an encyclopedic recall of situations and encounters. The level of detail is incredible, and the vivid pictures he paints with his words are utterly absorbing.”
Full review on my Books page. . . 

I'm incredibly proud but humbled to present this fun video https://youtu.be/CdbYZ5GDNHQ of me and a friend enjoying a local potholing (underground caving) adventure!
Potholing is one of my favourite outdoor adventure hobbies and I'm keen to encourage more people, especially of mature years, to try it!
In The Abyss, me and my book publicist Ian Spindley venture down and around an old mine working. This includes me crossing a narrow beam above a bottomless chasm!
Last year I bought a mini action camera to capture an exploration near Porthmadog, and a local film-maker Sid Stephenson of Films@No2 in Criccieth also shot footage to professionally edit/produce the video.
I feature potholing in my first lifestory 'Yeti Seeks Mate' and novel 'Nork From Nowhere.' In my second autobiography 'English, Solitaire, Cowboy, Cuckoo. . .' – successfully launched last autumn – I encourage average hill walkers on low budgets to explore less well-known outdoor locations, to take their own route safely to their destination, and maybe to try new activities such as potholing or sailing.
Promoting potholing, my 5 books (2 autobiographies and 3 saga novels), and Porthmadog Chess Club (which I co-founded last year) are just 3 of my 4 ambitious plans for 2025. The final one is finishing and, hopefully having published, my sixth book (another unusual fiction).