Biography
Robert Swindells was born on 20 March 1939 in Bradford, Yorkshire. He left school at fifteen and worked in a variety of jobs — newspaper copyholder, RAF wireless operator, clerk — before training as a teacher and working in primary schools. He began writing in the 1970s.
Swindells has written over fifty books for children and young adults, ranging from gothic horror (Room 13, Inside the Worm) to gritty social realism (Stone Cold, which won the Carnegie Medal in 1994 and deals unflinchingly with homelessness among teenagers). This range — from accessible primary-age ghost stories to hard-hitting YA social fiction — makes him one of the most versatile writers working in British children's literature.
Room 13 (1989), his most widely read horror novel, draws on the real location of Whitby — the town where Bram Stoker set Dracula — and uses its Gothic atmosphere with great skill. The novel is notable for respecting children's capacity to be genuinely frightened and to enjoy the architecture of suspense.
Swindells received an OBE for services to children's literature in 2002. He continues to write and live in Yorkshire.