A former broadcast journalist and special adviser to the Prime Minister (not this one), since leaving politics I’ve written more than 90 books for children and adults, including the UK bestselling The Worst Class in the World series, the Flying Fergus series with Sir Chris Hoy, and the Carnegie-nominated Joe All Alone, which is now a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC Drama. I’ve been a World Book Day author, a Blue Peter book of the month and Radio 4 and the i magazine Book of the Year, won the Fantastic Book Award and the Highland Book Prize, been nominated for the Carnegie Medal twice, and been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, Queen of Teen and the Big Book Awards among many others, and am published across multiple territories.
I have a PhD in Creative Writing and am a Senior Lecturer in the subject at University of Bristol, as well as teaching for the Arvon Foundation. I like: Paris, prom dresses, that bit in the West Wing where Donna tells Josh she wouldn’t stop for a red light if he was in an accident, junk shops, Ladybird books, cake, crisps, Cornwall, St Custard’s, Portuguese custard tarts, politics, pin-up swimsuits, the Regency, high heels, horses, old songs, old dresses, my Grandma’s fur coat, vinyl, liner notes, the smell of old books, the feel of a velveteen monkey, quiffs, putting my hand in a bin of chicken feed, eating peanut butter from the jar, the bit where Johnny says ‘no-one puts Baby in a corner’, the 1950s, automata, fiddles, gigs in fields on warm summer nights, Bath, the bath.
