Julian Gough

For the scientist, see Julian Gough (scientist).

Julian Gough (born June 1966) is an Irish musician, novelist, and poet. Initially known as the singer and lyricist for the Galway band Toasted Heretic, he has since established a career as a satirist, novelist, commentator and writer of children's books. Musically, he is best known for his songs "Galway and Los Angeles", "You can Always go Home" and "LSD (isn't what it used to be)"; his fictional works include "The Orphan and the Mob" (the first chapter of his novel Jude: Level 1), which won the BBC National Short Story Award in 2007, and the End Poem that appears at the end of Minecraft.

Julian Gough
Julian Gough in Singapore in 2017
Born	June 1966 (age 59)
Nationality	Irish
Education	University College Galway
Website	juliangough.com

Career

Gough grew up near Heathrow Airport in London, before moving to Nenagh aged seven.^[1] He was studying English and philosophy at University College Galway in the late 1980s when he and some friends founded Toasted Heretic. The band recorded four albums and had one top-10 hit, "Galway and Los Angeles", in 1992.^[2][3] Gough's first novel, Juno & Juliet, was published in 2001 by Flamingo, almost a decade after Toasted Heretic split up. His second novel, Jude: Level 1, was published in 2007^[4] at Old Street Publishing, shortly after he won the 2007 National Short Story Award for the book's first chapter, titled "The Orphan and the Mob".^[5]

In 2010, Salmon Poetry released Gough's first poetry collection, Free Sex Chocolate, which juxtaposes Gough's more recent forays into poetry with his earlier lyrics written for Toasted Heretic.^[6] He is also the author of several short stories and novellas that satirize global economic policies, including 2003's Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble^[7] and CRASH! How I Lost a Hundred Billion and Found True Love. In 2015, Gough signed a book deal with Picador.^[8]

In November 2011, Gough was invited by Markus Persson, creator of Minecraft, to create a story for the ending of the game, in preparation for its release.^[9] The resulting work, called the End Poem, has been described as both confusing to^[10] and revered by^[11] the Minecraft community. After a psilocybin trip prompted Gough to consider the poem's line "The Universe loves you because you are love" and the love he had received but not accepted for the poem, he wrote an essay in his newsletter in December 2022 explaining that he had never signed a contract with either of Minecraft's parent companies, releasing the original version of the poem into the public domain.^[12][13]

Gough writes columns and opinion pieces for various newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian,^[14] Prospect Magazine^[15] and A Public Space.^[16] His novel Jude in London came third in the 2011 Guardian Not The Booker prize^[17] after the author threatened to share pictures of him "wearing only the [Not The Booker trophy] mug" should he win the competition.^[18]

In 2016, Gough, in collaboration with illustrator Jim Field, published A Rabbit's Bad Habits, the first installment of the Rabbit and Bear series of children's books.^[19] By 2024, the series has grown to six books^[20] and has been translated into over thirty languages. ^[21]

In 2022, he announced The Egg and the Rock, an upcoming book in which Gough aims to explore the nature of the universe as an evolving organism subject to natural selection. Parts of the book are being written and published in public.^[22] In March 2025 he published a blog post on his cosmological theory which he named the Blowtorch Theory.^[23] It posits the idea that "sustained, powerful jets from supermassive black holes in the extremely early universe actively carved the large-scale structure of the universe we see all around us today, including galaxies, cosmic voids, and filament." The theory received broadly positive responses from scientists. German physicist and cosmologist Jenny Wagner said it raised "highly important questions on the validity of our current concordance model in cosmology".^[24]

Publications

• I Totes Love the Christian Brothers (Self-published, 1978)
• Juno & Juliet (Flamingo, 2001) ISBN 978-0-00-710810-7
• Jude: Level 1 (Old Street, 2007) ISBN 978-1-905847-24-2
• Free Sex Chocolate (Salmon Poetry, 2010) ISBN 978-1-907056-36-9
• Jude in London (Old Street, 2011) ISBN 978-1-905847-83-9
• "End Poem" from Minecraft (2011).
• Rabbit's Bad Habits (Hodder Children's Books, 2016) ISBN 978-1444921687
• Rabbit and Bear: The Pest in the Nest (Hodder Children's Books, 2017) ISBN 978-1444921717
• Connect (Doubleday, 2018) ISBN 978-0-385541-33-6
• Rabbit and Bear: A Bite in the Night (Hodder Children's Books, 2019) ISBN 1667203851
• Rabbit and Bear: This Lake is Fake (Hodder Children's Books, 2024) ISBN 978-1444947571