A keen lighting designer, Dean visited the Edinburgh Festival with a theatre company from the University of Colorado and then stayed for a year, spending most of his salary in pubs. After moving to London, he took up a career in graphic design and then web communications in the City before starting pub review website fancyapint.com with a friend. Editor of Fancyapint? in London and author of two Jaared Sen books, Dean lives in East London with his wife Debra and two cats, and dreams of a that house in France.