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I live
in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, with my husband and my
daughter Catrin (when she is not away at university). I
was born and brought up in Solihull, in the West Midlands.
After school, I went to Warwick University where I studied
History and Politics. I then became a teacher and taught
History, then English in comprehensive schools. I am not
the type of author who started writing as soon as I could
hold a pen. When I was at school, my teachers were not enthusiastic
about my literary efforts, so I didn't even think about
writing until I'd been teaching for quite a few years. I
began writing in response to my pupils. Most of the books
they liked were American and they wanted action, but set
in Britain involving ordinary kids like them. Someone told
me a true story about a group of kids who got caught up
in a murder hunt. This became my first book Every Step
You Take. I began writing it in 1989 and it was published
in 1993.
I have
written many more books since then, including several thrillers
and Blood Sinister, The Vanished and The
Cunning Man for Scholastic's Point Horror Unleashed
series. I often choose popular genre, like crime or horror,
because it's what people want to read, but the kind of book
I write depends on the initial idea. Sometimes it's a passionate
concern, like bullying in The Bailey Game, or two
things connecting together, like UFOs and autism in Truth
or Dare. Witch Child, set in the Seventeenth
Century, came from chance readings about European witch
persecution and Native American shamanism.
Writing
is something I can never turn off. Even when I'm on holiday,
I always keep a notebook with me because I never know when
I'm going to get the next really great idea!
Profile
supplied by Celia Rees
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