Michael Cox was born on the 23rd August 1949 in Sherwood, Nottingham (maternity hospital, not forest). He spent his early years being a child, then, after working as a trainee hotel manager, office worker and rose grower ( but not all at the same time) he became a teacher, using his spare moments to write stories and paint pictures.

In the early 1990s he won a Scholastic-Independent 'Story of the Year' award and quite soon afterwards (about 3 minutes) he gave up teaching and began writing on a full time basis. Since then he has written about 25 books for children on subjects ranging from art and architecture to weirdness and horror (so, not much change there). He writes both fiction and non-fiction and his books have been published in a dozen countries including Finland and Korea (although he finds translating 'knock-knock' jokes into Korean gives him a headache.)

Michael lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife, who is a college lecturer, his cat, who isn't, and one hen, which couldn't be even if it wanted to. He has one son, who is also an author and a journalist.

Michael's spare time activities include walking to his work room, switching on his word processor and frowning at the postman. When he's not busy writing he's to be found jetting off on exciting, expenses paid research trips to his local library. In addition to this he loves visiting schools and talking to children about things like writing and fun stuff to do with mammoths. He also draws pictures, reads bits from his books and is generally something of a nuisance.
When he finds the time Michael still likes to go outdoors and paint pictures of trees and sheep but gets really irritated when they wander away before he's finished (the sheep, not the trees). He also loves reading and listening to blues and African pop.

Biography supplied by Michael Cox - January 2002