Chris D'Lacey

Chris d’Lacey writes books for children of all ages, but is best known for his series The Last Dragon Chronicles which have sold nearly four million copies worldwide. He likes dragons. Check out his latest Erth Dragons series, beginning with book one, The Wearle. That is indeed VERY dragony. And fans of the supernatural might like his UNICORNE Files series - a kind of 'X-Files' for kids. Book one is called A Dark Inheritance.

Chris's early ambition was to be a songwriter, and he did not begin writing fiction until he was in his early thirties. He kicked off with a gentle ‘Christmassy’ story that grew, alarmingly, into a 250,000 word adult saga about polar bears. It is still to come out of his ‘bottom drawer’. He progressed to writing bizarre short stories and had a smattering of efforts placed in a variety of well-regarded small press magazines. He had no real plans to try children’s fiction until a friend suggested he enter a competition to write a story for nine-year-olds. He didn’t win the competition, but sent the story to a publisher who picked it off a slush pile. Not surprisingly, he has now switched completely to children’s fiction and has published some thirty-odd titles, many of which have been widely translated. ‘Fly, Cherokee, Fly’ (his first children’s novel) was highly commended for the Carnegie Medal.

In July 2002, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Leicester (where he worked for twenty-eight years as a scientist of sorts) for his services to children’s fiction. He now writes full time and is a regular visitor to schools, libraries and book festivals. He lives in Devon, England, where he likes to stare at the sea a lot and play the ukulele. A little known fact is that as well as his middle grade fiction, he has also ventured into the young adult arena under the pseudonym ‘Vincent Caldey’. His one book under that name 'A Good Clean Edge' is very different and very hard to find. Dragons are not mentioned within its pages.