Malorie Blackman was born in London in 1962, and has spent most of her life there. She went to Honor Oak Grammar School and then went to Huddersfield where she undertook a course in business studies.

She later studied computer science at Thames Polytechnic and worked at a variety of different jobs before becoming a full time writer in 1990, the same year her first book was published.

Although she has travelled throughout Europe and the United States working as a database manager, her ideal position would be captaining the Starship Enterprise - being a real Star Trek fan - or accompanying agents Mulder and Scully on one of their action-packed X-Files.

Malorie gained immediate success as a writer with her first book, Hacker, gaining two major children's awards in 1994: The WHS Mind Boggling Books Award, and the Young Telegraph/Gimme 5 Award.

She has written a number of other books for children, including A.N.T.I.D.O.T.E., Thief! which has been televised for Book Box for Channel 4 Schools, and for younger readers Space Race. Pig-Heart Boy, first published in 1997, has also been turned into a BBC television production.

In 2003 she her book 'Noughts & Crosses' appeared in the BBC Big Read top 100 books as voted for by the general public. The sequel, 'Knife Edge', was released in early 2004.

When she is not working Malorie enjoys messing about on the guitar, piano and saxophone. She goes regularly to the cinema and theatre, enjoys watching TV, playing computer games and surfing the net. She loves reading absolutely everything - except Westerns!

Malorie lives in South London with her partner and young daughter.

Malorie is available for school visits through Jubilee Books just go to our Author Visits section.