Paul Cookson
PAUL COOKSON was born in 1961 and brought up just outside Preston in Lancashire, where his early ambitions were to play football for Everton or electric guitar in Slade. His work experience has included chicken catching, selling shoes, working with special needs children and interviewing pop stars. Paul is now a highly successful poet and anthologizer. His first selection of poems was published in 1978 and he has since published many solo collections for both adults and children. Through his work as a performance poet and a teacher, he has learned what makes children tick - what really interests them, captures their imagination and makes them laugh. A poet in demand, Paul has visited over 1,000 schools and has sold well over 300,000 books. He is a regular visitor to the Greenbelt and Edinburgh Book festivals where he often performs his show Tickling in Public with poet Stewart Henderson. In 2005, Paul will be at the Northern Children's Book Festival and the Wigtown Book Festival.
If he has any spare time after this, Paul tends to spend too much money on CDs, books and loud shirts, and plays five-a-side football. Paul now lives in Retford, Nottinghamshire with his wife, Sally, son Sam and daughter Daisy.
Praise for Paul Cookson
'Paul Cookson... demonstrates a clear understanding of school children and the matters that concern them.'
The School Librarian
'An abundance of jests, jokes and japes and there's plenty of wacky stuff about weird teachers too... It's just The Beano in poem form.'
Junior Education about Crazy Classrooms and Secret Staffrooms
'A collection of poems with guaranteed kid-appeal.'
Publishing News about Staying Out Late, Playing Out Late