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Melvin Burgess is both one of the most
popular and controversial children's authors writing today.
His latest book is 'Doing It' which follows
the sexual experiences of three teenage boys. His other
books include 'Junk', which tackles the issue of drug addiction,
'Lady: My Life As A Bitch' and the ambitious and unsettling
'Bloodtide', based on the first part of the Icelandic Volsunga
Saga.
Biography
"I was born in Sussex in 1954 - far too long ago. I
was an extremely dreamy and shy child, and I used to used
to wander round muttering to myself and playing games with
imaginary friends. My parents had to shout - "He's in the
land!" to explain to people why I apparently couldn't hear
what they were saying to me. I did very badly at school
- I was daydreaming too much to concentrate on anything
much. It wasn't until I was pretty nearly grown up that
I started to think that the world around me might be at
least as interesting as what was going on in my own head.
I did poorly at school, although occasionally
teachers would think I had a lot of promise. In those days
we had an exam called the eleven plus, which you did just
before you went to High School. If you were a clever kid
with a good brain, you passed and went to Grammar School
to learn brainy things, and if you were a dumb kid, you
failed and went to Secondary Modern School and learnt how
to do things with your hands. I was a kid with hands. I
went to Secondary Modern School.
I wasn't very happy at my new school. I
remember having a lousy teacher there, who bawled me out
for doing a story in a way she hadn't ordered - I'd done
it as a diary. She was furious! - called me out in front
of the whole class and made a fool of me. So, she got no
good stories out of me. My parents moved again, to Reading
in Berkshire. This new school was going comprehensive -
children of all abilities were to go there. I got on much
better there, due to one or two very good teachers who helped
me along, but I was still a poor worker, and came away with
two very bad A levels, in Biology and English. Mine was
only the second year to do A levels - I'm sure, if they
hadn't been just gagging to let anyone do them, no one would
have let me near the exams at all.
Life got rapidly better for me after I left
school, but for the first few months I hadn't got a clue
what to do. My dad eventually filled in an application form
for a job as a journalist with the local newspaper. Somehow
I got the job and went off to do a course for six months
training.
The course was great - it was my only real
time as a student - but by the end of it I had decided that
I really wanted to write and that no other career would
do. I packed in the job as soon as I got back home, much
to the editor's disgust. "I think the saddest, thing, Melvin,
is that you have deprived someone else of a career opportunity,"
he intoned. Then I got on with writing my first book, which,
of course, no one wanted to publish.
For the next fifteen years, I wrote on and
off, had casual jobs here and there, spent a lot of time
out of work with not much to do, and I enjoyed myself enormously.
I moved to Bristol after a couple of years where I lived
until I was thirty. Inner-city Bristol was a great place
to live, with a big racial and cultural mix. I learned a
lot there and got my feeling for life. My book 'Junk' is
based on Bristol in those years, and although it is not
biographical, you can pick up a lot of the atmosphere and
meet a few of the people in its pages.
I was living in London aged about thirty
five when I began to think it was time for me to really
try hard to see if I could make writing work for me. I'd
written a great deal off and on for years, a lot of it experimental,
but I'd never really put getting published over writing
what I felt like writing. So I had a go - I did short stories,
radio drama, and children's fiction. I had some success
in all three, but my book 'The Cry of the Wolf', was shortlisted
for the Carnegie medal. So that's what I've been doing ever
since.
I now live in Manchester, with my wife Judith,
my son Oliver and my step son Sam. I have a daughter, Pearl,
who lives with her mother in Odessa, Ukraine.
Information supplied by Melvin
Burgess - Last updated May 2002
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ABOUT THIS AUTHOR 
Melvin
Burgess Bibliography
Melvin
Burgess Interview - May 03
Melvin
Burgess Interview - Aug 01
RELATED NEWS
Laureate
Attacks 'Grubby' Burgess
New Publication
Date for 'Doing It'
Booktrust
Postpones Teen Prize
INTERNET LINKS
Melvin
Burgess website
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