Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Stan graduated from Leeds University in the 1970s and began a successful career in provincial and national newspapers.

After a life spent working in fields from the airline industry to financial security, he now writes regularly for a variety of publications, including The New European newspaper, for which he is a writer of generally offbeat features, both long and short. He is also publisher and editor of Altitude, the inflight magazine of Eastern Airways.

Stan is also an established author of fiction and non-fiction, mostly under the pen name of Stan L Abbott, and has additionally edited a number of non-fiction titles.

Stan has been working on narrative non-fiction titles for publisher, Saraband. Walking The Line: Exploring Settle & Carlisle Country is based on journey on foot between Settle and Carlisle and was published to high critical acclaim in June 2021. Runner-up Lakeland Book of the Year 2022.

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Ring of Stone Circles: Exploring Neolithic Cumbria describes a journey by electric cycle taking in more than 30 surviving Neolithic and Bronze Age stone circles in and around the English Lake District. Published 2022 and longlisted for Lakeland Book of the Year, 2023.

He was longlisted for the inaugural Nature Chronicles Prize and his nature writing also features in an anthology, North Country, published by Saraband in 2022.

Stan’s first novel, The Episode, was published by Sixth Element in February 2019 and is a fictionalised account of man who creates a fantasy world during a manic episode, caused by an accident. He is currently working on a second novel, which explores an alternative political reality in a fragmented UK.

He is currently working on a memoir to celebrate ten years since life-saving surgery. It will be based on a cycle ride following Alfred Wainwright’s A Pennine Journey. Due for publication in Autumn 2024.

Since the 1980s, Stan has authored and edited a number of non-fiction books, of which the best remembered have been his RailTrail guides and serious works on a variety of transport subjects. His To Kill A Railway and The Line That Refused To Die (the latter jointly with the BBC’s Alan Whitehouse) dealt with the long battle to save the Settle & Carlisle Railway from closure and achieved combined sales of more than 16,000.

Stan edited A Space for Wonder, a guide to the various Pyrenean long-distance traverses by Gordon Wilson. He recently worked with the acclaimed artist Piers Browne to help make his illustrated coming-of-age novella, La Route des Violettes, more suitable for publication. He runs creative writing courses in North Yorkshire and recently enabled the publication of a memoir by Sue Walley, a jumbo jet pilot turned climate crusader.

Stan’s career began in 1976 after graduated in French and Management Studies, going on to complete his journalistic training at Harlow Technical College. He worked for ten years as an award-winning writer and sub-editor on regional and national newspapers in the UK, before setting up his own publishing business. Leading Edge Press & Publishing, which was based in Wensleydale and boasted a list of 50 mostly non-fiction titles, ranging from outdoor activity guides to serious works on transport, politics and the environment.

From 1998 to 2001, Stan was Head of Marketing at Newcastle-based regional airline Gill Airways, with specific additional responsibility for managing the airline’s relationship with its key partner, Air France, as well as for developing strategic partnerships with other overseas airlines. He went on to establish a marketing business with clients across the UK and Europe. He is fluent in French, has some spoken German and Spanish and has wide experience of working in North America, as well as Europe. He has translated non-fiction material from French to English.

He is currently Chair of the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild.