I started telling stories as soon as I knew what stories were. I was fascinated by them -
that someting could happen and be connected to another thing, and someone could put two things together and show how the frist
thing caused the second thing, whitch then caused a third thing. I loved it. I love it still.
My early experience with stories came from the radio,witch is a wonderful medium. I remember
listening to gangster serials ,and cowboy serials and the best of all - superman! When I first saw the Superman
comic , it changed my life. Soon afterwards I discovered Batman, too, whom I loved even more. I had to argue with my parents
about the comics though , because they weren't "proper" reading.
I supposew what persuaded them to let me carry on reading comics was the fact that I was also reading
bokks just as greedily. I was good at spelling,so obviously the comics weren't harming me too much.
For a long time, my favorite stories were ghost stories. I used to enjoy frightening my friends and
myself with the tales I read. I also liked making up storis about the tree in the woods we used to call the hanging tree.
My friends and I would creep past it in the dark and shiver as we looked at thebare,sinister outline against the sky.I still
enjoy ghosts stories ,even though I dont think I bileve in ghosts anymore. I was sure that iI was going to write stories myself
when I grew up. It's impotant to put it like that not " I am a writer," but rather" I write stories." If you put the
emphasis on yourself rather than your work you're in danger of thinking that you'rre the most important thing. But you're
not. The story is what matters and you're only the servant and your job is to get it out on time and in good order.
I live in oxfordnow, and I do my writing in a shed at the bottom of my garden. If the young
boyI used to be could have looked ahead in time and seen the man I am today, writing stories in the shed, would have
been pleased? I wonder.Would that child who loved Batman comics and ghost stories approved of the novels I earn my living
with now? I hope so. I hope he's still with me. I'm writing them for him. A grauate of Oxford University with a degree in
English, Philip Pullman spent part of his youth living in Australia, where he loved listening to serials on the radio and
reading SUPERMAN and BATMAN comic books. Pullman has been telling stories since he discovered them as a child and is the author
of many acclaimed novels , plays, and picture books for reader of all ages. He now lives in Oxford,England , with his wife
and two children, and spends his time writing in a shed in the garden behind his home. A recent recipent of the highest award
given for children's literature in England, he was awarded the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Fiction Award for THE
GOLDEN COMPASS, the first book of the "his DArk Materials" trilogy.
