Cliff McNish has written numerous novels for teenagers and children. His debut fantasy series – 'The Doomspell Trilogy' – hailed him as a ‘great new voice in writing for children’ (The Bookseller), and has been published in twenty-six languages worldwide. His multiple-award winning 'Breathe: A Ghost Story' was voted in May 2013 as one of the top 100 adult and children’s novels of all time by The Schools Network of British Librarians.

Cliff actively works to promote creative writing, performing a variety of talks and workshops in schools, libraries, reading clubs and book festivals.
 

"I was born in Sunderland, a city in the north-east of England.
I don't recall too much about my first 8 years of life other than I loved being outdoors especially in the woods near our house. I came home every night covered in scratches.
My first real book memory is being given C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew by my English teacher, Mrs Baldwin. I loved that, and all the other Narnia books.

So how did I become an author?
As a parent I was used to making up short and funny stories for my daughter, Rachel. When she was about ten, however, she wanted a story about a really, really nasty witch. This time I put pen to paper and what started off as a tiny scrap of an idea got bigger and bigger and BIGGER. It became 'The Doomspell'.
After I finished it, I continued my love affair with fantasy by creating The Silver Sequence which I still think is probably my best and definitely my most original work. Following that, I tried to scare everyone half to death with a couple of ghost novels - 'Breathe' and 'The Hunting Ground'.
 
I could tell you more about myself, but the truth is that perhaps the biggest gift we can give anyone is our imagination and everything important I have to offer you about that is in the novels".