Malorie Blackman

Sitter in 2 portraits
Malorie Blackman was born to Barbadian parents in London. She was discouraged from becoming an English teacher by a careers advisor and instead pursued a career in computing before becoming a writer at the age of twenty-eight. Her first published book was a collection of short stories entitled Not So Stupid! (1990), but she found major success with her first children's novel Hacker (1992). Since then she has written many books, the best-known of which is the ground-breaking Noughts and Crosses series (2001-8), which imagines a teenage love story in an alternate dystopia with reverse race relations. She was awarded an OBE in 2008 for services to children's literature. In 2016, it was announced that the first book in the series would be adapted for television, with filming beginning in 2018. Her scripts for television include several episodes of Byker Grove, Whizziwig and the BAFTA-winning Pig-Heart Boy (an adaptation of her 1997 novel). She has also written original dramas for CITV and BBC Education. Blackman writes for children of all ages, and from 2013-5 she was the Children’s Laureate, the first black writer to hold this position.