Matt Haig - Author

Matt Haig was born in Sheffield in 1975 and grew up in Nottinghamshire. He has lived in London and Spain, and now lives in north Yorkshire. His writing has frequently appeared in the UK press. He is the author of The Last Family in England, a UK bestseller narrated by a Labrador, The Dead Fathers Club, an update of Hamlet featuring an eleven-year-old boy and The Possession of Mr Cave. He has also written two children's novels, Shadow Forest, and its sequel The Runaway Troll.

Matt Haig on his teen novel, The Radleys:
"This is a story about growing up, first and foremost. About how we learn to come to terms with who we are, independent of the ideas our parents had for us. About how we decide our own identities. As well as what shapes those identities - who we choose to love, and hate, admire and fear. It is about how denying ourselves can sometimes be more dangerous than succumbing to tempation. This is the story I wanted to tell. I never set out to write a vampire story, but vampires were the obvious choice. After all, as family secrets go, you can't get much bigger than finding out you are actually a full-blown creature of the night. And hopefully it fits as a metaphor for teenage life. A life full of physical changes, forbidden cravings, and feelings of being an outsider. In that sense, we've probably all been vampires at some stage."

Author photo © Clive Doyle

If you like Matt Haig you might also like to read books by Simon Lelic, Neil Cross and Joe Dunthorne.