REBUS AUTHOR WROTE POETRY FOR RADIO TIMES IN HIS TEENS

REBUS writer Ian Rankin confessed he once sent a poem into the Radio Times to try and get published.
The award winning crime writer may have sold more than 20 million books, which have spawned several telly shows, but he claims punk music inspired him to get creative.
As he appeared at The Tower Digital Arts Centre in Helensburgh for a Cafe Improv session with Scots musician King Creosote, Fife born Ian, 55, revealed his DIY attitude came from music.
 He said: "The whole thing about punk was it came along at the right time. I was 16 or 17 in high school and we were trying to start a magazine and thought anyone could do it. I was brought up on prog rock and you had to have Mellotrons and know classical music and score stuff.
"With punk you could just pick up the cheapest  guitar going and hammer away at it. It was like that. Anybody can do it to get on board. You want to be a writer? I was sending off stories and poems to ridiculous places like The Times Literary Supplement and I even sent off a poem to the Radio Times thinking maybe they will take it. I was eighteen at the time and thought why not? " 
Ian, whose first book The Flood was published in 1986 by small indie uni run company Polygon in Edinburgh, added: "It was DIY things, in Scotland per say, not just in music and film but writing too.They were put together by kids  fresh out of high school trying to do something different ."