Paul Crilley was born in Scotland in 1975 and moved to South Africa when he was eight years old. He was rather disappointed to discover that Africa was not at all like the Tarzan movies he watched on Sunday afternoons and that he would not, in fact, have elephants and lions strolling through his back yard. (Although he does have plenty of monkeys who raid his kitchen for fruit and bread.)

 

His parents being of a rather fickle nature, they decided to move back to Scotland in 1986, only to return once again to South Africa in 1988, where Paul has remained ever since.

 

Paul has always wanted to be a writer, and luckily for him his parents didn’t think it too strange that he spent every available moment reading. In fact, they pretty much encouraged it, making sure he always had new books to read, so a lot of what you see or read here is probably their fault.

 

When he was eighteen he met Caroline, and they have been together ever since. They have two children - a five year old daughter and a two year old son. They live in a village called Hillcrest, which is on the east coast of South Africa. They have two dogs and seven cats.

 

Although Paul loves writing Young Adult and Middle Grade fiction, he also likes to work in as many other fields as possible. He writes adult fantasy for Wizards of the Coast, (The Chronicles of Abraxis Wren, a crime/noir/fantasy mashup featuring the acrebic Abraxis Wren and his long-suffering assistant Torin). He spent most of last year working as a freelance writer on the Bioware/Lucasarts MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, something of a dream come true for Paul, as he has always been a Star Wars geek. (His earliest movie-going memory is going to see The Empire Strikes Back when he was five years old.) Paul also writes for South African television.