AKA Terence David John Pratchett

Born: 28-Apr-1948
Birthplace: Beaconsfield, Bucks, England

Gender: Male
Religion: Atheist
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Novelist

Nationality: England
Executive summary: Discworld sci-fi series

Fantasy author Terry Pratchett is noted for his satiric and whimsical novels, especially his Discworld series. Pratchett's work, which spans literature for children, teens, and adults, has been compared to Monty Python, Douglas Adams's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, as well as the writings of P. G. Wodehouse. Pratchett's best loved works include The Colour of Magic, Pyramids, Soul Music, The Light Fantastic, Guards! Guards!, Reaper Man, Interesting Times, Wyrd Sisters, Sourcery, and Equal Rites. His work had been adapted into a number of other mediums including animated film, stage plays and musicals, computer games, as well as radio plays and comic books.

Terry Pratchett was born in Beaconsfield, England, and he credits most of his education to the Beaconsfield Public Library. Pratchett notes that when it was time to move on to secondary school, in 1959, he selected High Wycombe Technical High School because he felt "woodwork would be more fun than Latin". Despite this decision Pratchett had no actual career direction in mind and describes himself as an uninterested student. Still he achieved excellent grades, and his first story, "The Hades Business", was published in the school magazine. More impressively, this same story was reprinted in Science Fantasy Magazine in 1963. Another story, "Night Dweller", followed in New Worlds magazine in 1965.

Pratchett finished school that same year, although only a teen, and took employment as a journalist, first at Bucks Free Press, then at various other papers. It was during this period that he interviewed publisher Peter Bander van Duren, of Colin Smythe Limited. Pratchett told Bander van Duren of a novel he had written, and asked him to take a look. The book, a funny and absurd story for children called The Carpet People, was happily accepted and was released in 1971. Pratchett soon published two more novels, The Dark Side of the Sun (1976) and Strata (1981), before finally releasing The Colour of Magic (1983), the first in what would prove to be a long series of Discworld novels. Originally intended to parody the fantasy books of the 70s and 80s, the Discworld tales unfold on an absurdly improbable world: a disc carried on the backs of four giant elephants, themselves carried on the backs of a gargantuan turtle swimming through space.

Meanwhile Pratchett had shifted around between various newspapers posts, and had finally, in 1980, been appointed publicity officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board -- a job which placed him in the absurd position of generating positive PR for nuclear power plants, in the wake of the Three Mile Island disaster. By 1987 however his success as a writer had expanded dramatically, encompassing popular fantasy books for a variety of age markets. His earnings as a writer now outweighed his "regular income", and so quit his day job to devote himself entirely to writing and puttering in his greenhouse.

Esteem for Pratchett's work is reflected both in the popularity of his current work and in the value attached to old editions of his books (some fetching as much as £2000) -- as well as in the quantity of metafiction about him and his creations. The latter includes two trivia books (The Unseen University Challenge and The Wyrdest Link) by David Langford as well as a collection of essays, Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature?. In 1998 Pratchett was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his contribution to literature, and in 1999 he received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Warwick.

Father: David Pratchett
Mother: Eileen Pratchett
Wife: Lyn Marian Purves (m. 1968)
Daughter: Rhianna Pratchett (author)

    High School: High Wycombe Technical High School

    Officer of the British Empire 1998
    Risk Factors: Alzheimer's

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Hogfather (17-Dec-2006)

Official Website:
http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/

Author of books:
Unadulterated Cat (1989, humor)
Feet of Clay: A Novel of Discworld (1996, novel)
Jingo: A Novel of Discworld (1997, novel)
The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable (2001, novel)
The Wee Free Men (2003, novel, juvenile)
A Hat Full of Sky (2004, novel, juvenile)

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