I was born in Newcastle and I spent smoking youth in a big Catholic friends and family in Felling-on-Tyne. I had four siblings and a brother and much much more relatives in the roadways nearby. smoking dad have been in Burma during that war. Your dog and smoking mum married in the late 40s. Papa became an office manager within a engineering factory. Mom was a shorthand typist until she had they. We moved several when I was a infant, but always within Felling. I decided on primary schools in Felling and Sunderland - both which I liked. I left for grammar school in Hebburn - i always disliked. To the surprise of a lot of people (eg a several teachers and especially man suit own headmaster) I went on to the University of East Anglia and did a diploma in English and Us Literature. After stints for a hotel porter, postman and labourer, I trained to become a teacher. It seemed the perfect job for a blogger: small hours, long excursions, what more could I'd prefer? How wrong I has been. man suit partner and i wasn't just exhausted by it, I also found that fascinating, and I learned a large amount. man suit partner and i worked five years in the primary school on a sizable estate in Gateshead. Even though I was there, man suit own first short stories began to be published in bit of magazines. I needed more time to write, so that i resigned and sold the house. I went to are in a commune based in a dilapidated mansion in a beautiful part of Norfolk. man suit partner and i lived for a year . 5 on a few 100 pounds and wrote man suit first decent stories truth be told there. When man suit money leaped out, I found a job writing booklets for a mature literacy scheme. This produced man suit final teaching job, in a school with regard to children with learning difficulties. Felling had been a coal mining town, but by the time I recall anything the pits have been all closed. The river in the foot of the village was lined with warehouses together with shipyards. At the smt was a wild location we called the Heather Hills. I loved playing football inside fields above the village, camping out with man suit own friends, messing about using man suit grandfather in his allotment. I was a great altar boy, together with I still know snatches in the Latin mass by center. I loved our nearby library, and dreamed of seeing man suit books on its shelves in the future. Favourite books as some sort of child/teenager included the tales of King Arthur together with his knights, the catalogs of T. Lobsang Rampa, and Hemingway's stories. I also useful to read man suit sisters' Enid Blytons. That i knew that I wanted to be a writer. Considered one of man suit uncles had a small printing works. man suit own mum said that she useful to take me there for a baby and I useful to laugh and point at the printed pages coming heli-copter f rollers - so maybe I began to fall in love with print when I was a few months old. I live with man suit family in Northumberland. We stay just beyond the Roman Wall, which for centuries marked where civilisation ended and your waste lands began. man suit first book for youth, Skellig, was published with 1998. In advance of that, many short stories had seemed in magazines and anthologies, and were broadcast on Broadcast 4. Two collections of man suit stories for people, Sleep deprived Nights (1985) and Some sort of Heaven (1997), were published by IRON Press, a small North Eastern publisher. I was editor in the fiction magazine 'Panurge' from 1987-93. I wrote a novel called Seances that took five years to jot down and was rejected by every publisher in the united kingdom. Then Skellig came along. It seemed to come out of nowhere, as if it absolutely was waiting quite a long time to be told. At times seemed to write itself. Considering Skellig, I've written several more children's fiction: Kit's Wilderness, Heaven Sight, Secret Cardiovascular system, The Fire-Eaters, and Clay; and a collection of stories based on man suit own childhood, Counting Stars. man suit first picture book, Kate, the Cat along with the Moon, illustrated by this wonderful Stephen Lambert, came out in 2004. I also write for the theatre. man suit first children's enjoy, Rough outdoors Girl, Wild Boy toured united kingdom in 2001. man suit stage adaptation involving Skellig was produced in the Young Vic in 2003, alongside man suit play for youngsters, man suit Dad's a Birdman. Bliss Eyes was premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005. My websites: Tin Man Costumes