ROBERT SWINDELLS left school at fifteen to work on a local newspaper. At seventeen, he joined the RAF for three years, then trained and worked as a teacher. Now a full-time writer, he is the author of a number of bestselling titles for the Random House children's list. In 1994 he won the Carnegie Medal for STONE COLD (Hamish Hamilton), a teenage novel about a serial killer. RUBY TANYA won the Salford Children's Book Award 2005.