Steve Harrison, DM's most awarded creative and the industry's creative critic-in-chief, is back.

Not back at an agency. Not yet, anyway. A few months after his departure from Wunderman in July 2007, he said he would 'probably not' return to agency life. "The days when UK DM was a dominant force in global DM creativity are long gone and are not returning," he said at a DM event in April last year. "I've done my time furthering creative standards in DM and it's now someone else's turn."

But he hasn't thrown the towel in, or been idle, needless to say of this famously workaholic creative. Steve has been working on a creative 'how to' book, aptly titled 'How to do better creative work'. The official launch is in June, and Waterstones is already advertising it.

Why did he feel the need to write a book? "A lot of people I know and respect in the industry have been suffering from chronic depression for the past couple of years, brow-beaten into thinking that what they’re doing is no longer important," he told me yesterday. "My book is fairly simple stuff that I thought everybody knew but nobody is propagating these principles anymore – good things that need to be vigilantly preserved. The great direct marketing we did five years ago didn’t just happen – it happened because great DM creatives propagating best practice. But there's a loss of faith in what we do."

Can't wait to read the chapter entitled 'How to run a creative department'. He was known not to suffer fools in his creative teams.

Inspiring, iconoclastic, caustic in wit - Steve, we've missed you. Welcome back.