Mike Gayle

Mike Gayle (born October 1970) is an English journalist and novelist.

Biography Gayle was born in Quinton, Birmingham, to parents from Jamaica, and is the younger brother of broadcaster Phil Gayle. He attended Lordswood Boys' School where he was Head Boy. He studied Sociology and Journalism at university.

Gayle edited a music fanzine and joined a Birmingham listings magazine before moving to London and beginning a postgraduate diploma in journalism. Before having his first novel published, he was a features editor and later an agony aunt for Just Seventeen and Bliss. As a freelance journalist he has written for the Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Times, the Daily Express, FHM, More!, The Scotsman and Top of the Pops. Alongside Tony Parsons and Tim Lott, he has also been associated with a "new wave of fictions about inadequate young British masculinities".

Gayle is friends with Danny Wallace, who has dubbed Mike his Minister of Home Affairs in the Kingdom of Lovely. He lives in Harborne with his daughters and his wife Claire. Hope Street, 2025 On We Go, 2026