Mark Haddon was born in Northampton in 1962.
He studied for a BA in English at Merton College,
Oxford, graduating in 1981.
Mark has packed a lot into his career over the years since graduating, with a
spell working as a live-in volunteer for someone with MS to working a string of
part-time jobs in London, from theatre box office to bicycle mail order work.
Between 1983-4 Mark returned to studying to complete an MSc in English
Literature at
Edinburgh University. Following this Mark held part-time positions for
Mencap and several other organisations, working with children and
adults with a variety of mental and physical handicaps.
At this time he was also involved in illustration work for a number of magazines
and has been a cartoonist for the
New Statesman, Spectator,
Private Eye,
Sunday Telegraph and
Guardian for which he co-wrote a cartoon-strip, Men - A User's Guide.
After
a year living in Boston, Massachusetts (1997-1998) with his wife they moved
back to England and, dissatisfied with his illustration work because it was
causing him headaches, he took up abstract
painting, which he now regularly sells.
From
1996 until now, Mark has been involved with many television projects. He has
won numerous awards, including two
BAFTAs and The Royal
Television Society Best Children's Drama for
Microsoap for which he was the creator and writer of 12 out of 25
episodes.
He
has also written 2 episodes for the children's TV series
Starstreet and most recently, has been involved in a BBC screenplay
adaptation of
Raymond Briggs's, 'Fungus
and the Bogeyman'.