• Date of birth: October 19th 1946

• Born in: Norwich, England

• Married to Jude and has two sons- Jamie and Tom. Jamie is a viola player, and Tom, the younger, studies music at university.

Interviews/ Chats with Philip Pullman

• If there suddenly was a law against writing stories, Pullman would break that law without a second's notice. To himself, he appears to be moderately harmless and useful.

• Both his father and step father were in the Royal Air Force, so he spent the early part of his life travelling around the world.

• Spent first part of childhood in Australia, where he first met the wonders of comics, his favourites including Superman and Batman.

• At the age of 11, he lived in North Wales, having moved back to Britain. He took full advantage of the fact that it was a time when children could fully roam about anywhere!

• His English teacher, Miss Enid Jones, was a big influence on him and he still sends her copies of his books.

• He went to Exeter College, Oxford, to read English,

• He did a number of odd jobs for a while, then moved back to Oxford to become a teacher.

• He taught at various middle schools for 12 years, then moved to Westminster College, Oxford to be a part time lecturer. He taught courses on the Victorian novel, and on folktale, and also a course examining how words and pictures fit together.

• He eventually left teaching to write full-time.

• His first published novel was for adults, but he had already begun writing for children when he was a teacher.

• The Ruby in the Smoke was based on a play he wrote for his school pupils.

• Pullman lives in Oxford and writes in a shed at the bottom of his garden!

• The shed contains two comfortable chairs (one for writing and one in front of the computer), several hundred books, a six-foot-long stuffed rat that took a part in his play Sherlock Holmes and the Limehouse Horror, a guitar, and saxophone, as well as the computer, decorated with dozens of brightly colored artificial flowers attached to it by Blu-Tack.

• Blu- tack and Post- it notes play a big part in Pullman's writing process.