Chris Priestley

Chris Priestley was born in Hull in the UK. His father was in the army and so he moved around a lot as a child, living in Gibraltar for a few years. He spent his teens in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, before moving to Manchester, London and then Norfolk. He now lives in Cambridge with his wife and son where he writes, draws, paints, dreams and doodles (not necessarily in that order). Chris worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for twenty years before becoming a writer. His artwork appeared in lots of newspapers and magazines, including The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Economist and the Wall Street Journal.

Chris has written many books for children and young adults, both fiction and non-fiction and has been nominated for many awards including the Edgar Awards, the UKLA Children's Book Award and the Carnegie Medal. In recent years he has predominantly been writing horror. The critically-acclaimed Tales of Terror series for Bloomsbury feature chilling stories rooted in the tradition of M R James, Saki and Edgar Allan Poe and are available in several languages. Chris's latest book is The Dead of Winter, a Gothic horror novel about a boy who goes to stay with his sinister guardian in a house filled with dark secrets. It is published in October 2010 by Bloomsbury.