I was born in Wales, but spent the first four years of my life in Malawi. Then my dad swapped the African sun for Welsh weather. I grew up to like the rain. There's nothing cosier than being warm inside with the sound of the rain drumming on the roof and windows. My first school was a village school with just three teachers. It was a bit of a shock to the system, then, to go up to the big comprehensive school. I loved English, languages, maths and science, but mostly I liked fooling around. I always seemed to be in trouble of one sort and another! I chose to do maths and science and went to Cambridge University to study chemistry. So it was a bit of a surprise to finish with a degree in Earth Sciences – with so much to learn about dinosaurs, the subject matter definitely had more teeth and bigger claws!
After college, I decided to go and live in Italy, learn Italian and get so good at playing music that by the time I would come back to Britain, my band and I would become instant global megastars... For some reason, this didn't happen. Very confusing! Instead, after working in a publishing company in London, I travelled to Venezuela. I worked as a travel guidebook writer, became the weekend editor of the national English-language newspaper and lived through a coup.
Back in London, having written some cartoon strips and magazine articles, I decided to try my hand at writing. My first job was to invent a voice for Basher's Science characters. We started out with the Periodic Table, and now the series has ballooned to 26 titles. This series has sold over 3 million books worldwide and is still going strong! Some of my other books have been shortlisted for the Royal Society's Young People's Book Prize (twice in 2013 and again in 2016) and the School Library Association Information Book Prize (2016). I've also been awarded the National Science Teachers' Association Outstanding Science Book (2012).
See what I'm up to, read some fascinating facts and see some crazy science videos!
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