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Writer of acclaimed and often controversial children's fiction, Melvin Burgess' first published book, The Cry of the Wolf (1990), was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. It was for his controversial teenage novel, Junk (1996) that he gained wider recognition. Winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, it is an honest and disturbing account of teenage homelessness and heroin addiction on the streets of Bristol, and has been adapted for television. In 2007, it was shortlisted for the Carnegie of Carnegies. Bloodtide (1999) was joint winner of the Lancashire County Library Children's Book of the Year Award. His comedy Lady: My Life as a Bitch (2001), also received a great deal of publicity for its frank exploration of the sexual behaviour of a teenage girl. Also in 2001, his novelisation of the film Billy Elliot was published, based on Lee Hall's screenplay. His controversial teenage novel, Doing It, was published in 2003, and Sara's Face in 2006. His latest book, Nicholas Dane (2009), is the story of a teenager living in a corrupt 1980s Care Home. Melvin Burgess lives in Manchester.
Colin Bateman is a novelist, screenwriter and former journalist from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. Born in 1962, Bateman has been producing novels since his debut, Divorcing Jack, in 1994. Divorcing Jack won a Betty Trask Award in the same year and was adapted into a 1998 film starring David Thewlis. Several of Bateman's novels featured the semi-autobiographical Belfast journalist, Dan Starkey. His book Murphy's Law was adapted from the BBC television series Murphy's Law (2001–2007), featuring James Nesbitt. Bateman explains on his website that Murphy`s Law was written specifically for James Nesbitt, a local actor who became a big TV star through Cold Feet. His children's book Titanic 2020 has been shortlisted for the 2008 Salford Children's Book Award. Much of his work is produced under the name Bateman (rather than his full name).
Robert Lewis was born in the Black Mountains, in the Brecon Beacons, which is by all accounts a beautiful part of the world. He spent his twenties getting sacked, living in bedsits, drinking in the dodgier pubs of various cities, and caring about the wrong things. Most of this is still going on. He still thinks literature can save him, but he hasn’t seen it save anyone else. His first novel, The Last Llanelli Train was shortlisted for the PG Wodehouse Bollinger Prize for Comic Writing.
Mark Billingham is one of the UK’s most acclaimed and popular crime writers. His series of London-based novels featuring D.I. Tom Thorne has twice won him the Theakston’s Crime Novel of The Year Award, the Sherlock Award for Best Detective and he was nominated for the 2009 CWA Gold Dagger for the year’s best crime novel. His standalone thriller In the Dark was chosen as one of the twelve best books of the year by the Times and each book, from his debut Sleepyhead, to the most recent, Bloodline, has been a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller. Mark has also worked successfully as a stand-up comedian for over 20 years and still performs occasionally at some of the country’s foremost comedy clubs. As well as telling cheap jokes for fun and profit, he writes for the Sunday Times and the Independent and is a frequent contributor to BBC TV and radio. Under the pseudonym Will Peterson, Mark also writes young adult books. Triskellion was the first in a trilogy of paranormal thrillers for older children and the final book in the series will be published in March 2010. A television series based on the crime novels is currently in production, starring David Morrissey as Tom Thorne.
Mark Billingham’s latest novel is Bloodline. Will Peterson’s latest novel is the second in the Triskellion trilogy: The Burning.
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China Miéville lives and works in London. He is two-time winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award (Perdido Street Station and Iron Council) and has also won the British Fantasy Award twice (Perdido Street Station and The Scar). The City & The City, an existential thriller, was published in 2009.
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Crime novelist Denise Mina is the author of a trilogy of novels set in Glasgow: Garnethill (1998), which won the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger; Exile (2000); and Resolution (2001). Sanctum (2002) is the story of a forensic psychiatrist, convicted of killing a serial killer. The Field of Blood (2005) is the first in a new series, the second in the series, The Dead Hour, being published in 2006, and the third, Slip of the Knife, in 2007. Denise Mina also writes short stories which have appeared in various anthologies, one of which, 'Helena and the Babies' from Fresh Blood 3 (1999), won the Crime Writers' Association Macallan Short Story Dagger. Two short stories and a play, Hurtle (2003), have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her latest play is Ida Tamson. In 2004 she was approached by DC comics to write a thirteen episode run on Hellblazer, collected as Empathy is the Enemy and The Red Right Hand. A new DC graphic novel is due for publication in October 2010 – A Sickness in The Family - and is drawn by the Italian artist Antonio Fuso. She is currently working with John Bolton on a proposed graphic novel set in Paris during the occupation. Her latest novel is Still Midnight (2009).
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Andy Diggle is an award-winning comic-book writer, currently under exclusive contract to Marvel Comics, for whom he writes Daredevil. In October 2009, principal photography was completed on the movie adaptation of his cult action-thriller comic-book series The Losers, starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana, which is due for worldwide release in April 2010. Formerly the Editor of influential British sci-fi comic 2000 AD, Andy now has over a dozen graphic novels in print, including Judge Dredd, Hellblazer, Batman, Swamp Thing, Thunderbolts, Adam Strange, Green Arrow: Year one and Guy Ritchie's Gamekeeper, which has been optioned by Warner Bros. In addition to his work for Marvel, Andy is currently developing several new creator-owned comics-to-film projects. London born and bred, he now lives in Lancaster in north-west England with his wife and two children.
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