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 Philip
Pullman is one of the most popular children's writers around
today with critical acclaim to match. He was recently awarded
a CBE in the Queen's New Years Honours list.
Pullman has won a number of prizes and awards including
the 1996 Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children's Fiction
Award and the British Book Award for his book 'Northern
Lights'.
In 2001 he became the first children's writer to claim
this prestigious Whitbread Book of the Year Award for 'The
Amber Spyglass', the final part of the His Dark Materials
trilogy.
Pullman has also won the United Kingdom Reading Award and
the International Reading Association Children's Book Award
in 1998 and the Author of the Year Award at the 2002 Nibbies
Awards.
In 2002 Philip Pullman won the Eleanor Farjeon Award which
is awarded annually to an individual in recognition of their
distinguished contribution to the world of children's books.
He was born in Norwich on 19th October
1946. The early part of his life was spent traveling all
over the world, because his father and then his stepfather
were both in the Royal Air Force. He spent part of his childhood
in Australia, where he first met the wonders of comics,
and grew to love Superman and Batman in particular.
From the age of 11, he lived in North
Wales, having moved back to Britain. It was a time when
children were allowed to roam anywhere, to play in the streets,
to wander over the hills, and he took full advantage of
it. His English teacher, Miss Enid Jones, was a big influence
on him, and he still sends her copies of his books.
After he left school he went to Exeter
College, Oxford, to read English. He did a number of odd
jobs for a while, and then moved back to Oxford to become
a teacher. He taught at various middle schools for twelve
years, and then moved to Westminster College, Oxford, to
be a part-time lecturer.
He taught courses on the Victorian
novel and on the folk tale, and also a course examining
how words and pictures fit together. He eventually left
teaching in order to write full-time.
His first published novel was for
adults, but he began writing for children when he was a
teacher. Some of his novels were based on plays he wrote
for his school pupils, such as 'The Ruby In The Smoke'.
Philip still lives in Oxford, and
he writes in a shed at the bottom of his garden. The shed
contains two comfortable chairs (one for writing in, one
for sitting at the computer in), several hundred books,
a six-foot-long stuffed rat which took a part in his play
Sherlock Holmes and the Limehouse Horror, a guitar, a saxophone,
as well as the computer, decorated with dozens of brightly
coloured artificial flowers attached to it by Blu-Tack.
Blu-Tack plays a big part in Philip
Pullman's writing process. With it he sticks to the wall
pictures, notes, posters, reminders, postcards, book jackets,
anything that will stay there.
Another product of technology that
Philip can't do without is Post-it Notes, the smallest yellow
ones in particular. They are very useful for planning the
shape of a story: he writes a brief sentence summarising
a scene on one of them, and then puts them on a very big
piece of paper which he can fill with up to sixty or more
different scenes, moving them around to get the best order.
Philip Pullman believes firmly in
the virtues of healthy exercise and a moderate diet - for
other people. It makes them feel virtuous, and makes them
feel good if not happy.
The most exercise he normally takes
is unscrewing the top of the whisky bottle. If he liked
the taste of tobacco, he would smoke vigorously. He is fond
of sport, and plays it by watching television. He is a big
fan of 'Neighbours', but that is the only soap he watches,
as 'Neighbours' gives him quite enough to think about.
He is married to Jude. Their son
Jamie is a viola player, and their younger son Tom studies
music at university.
As far as he can tell, Philip Pullman
is moderately harmless and useful. He would like to carry
on doing what he's doing now, and there seems no reason
why he shouldn't, but if it suddenly became against the
law to write stories, he would break the law without a second's
hesitation.
"Stories are the most
important thing in the world.
Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all."
Philip Pullman
Supplied by Scholastic - Last updated January
2004
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