Malorie Blackman worked as a database manager and systems programmer before becoming a full-time writer. Her reputation has steadily grown and she has been awarded a number of prizes including the WHSmith's Mind-Boggling Books Award and the Young Telegraph/Gimme 5 award for Hacker the Young Telegraph/Fully Booked award for Theif! and, more recently, shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Pig-Heart Boy. She was voted Voice/Excel Children's Writer of the Year in 1997. Her novel Noughts and Crosses has won both the Children's Book Award and the Lancashire Children's Book Award 2002. THE TIMES recently described her as 'a bit of a national treasure.'
