Paul Magrs

Early life

Magrs was born in Jarrow, Co. Durham, on 12 November 1969. In 1975 he moved with his family to Newton Aycliffe, County Durham; his parents divorced shortly after the move. At the age of 17, Magrs was queer-bashed, and his father was the police officer who took the report on the incident; it was the last time Paul Magrs saw his father.

In Newton Aycliffe, Magrs attended Woodham Comprehensive School, where Mark Gatiss was two years ahead of him and in the same drama group. Magrs went on to Lancaster University, where he received a first class BA in English (1991), an MA in Creative Writing (1991) and a PhD in English (1995). His doctoral thesis was on Angela Carter.

Literary career

Magrs is the author of numerous fiction and non-fiction works. His first published writing was the short story "Patient Iris", published 1995 in New Writing Four (edited by A. S. Byatt and Alan Hollinghurst). This was soon followed by his debut novel, Marked for Life, the same year. Magrs' first three novels, Marked for Life, Does It Show? (1997) and Could It Be Magic? (1998), share characters, a magical realist tone and a setting: the fictional Phoenix Court council estate in Newton Aycliffe.

Magrs' first children's book, Strange Boy (2002), prompted controversy due to homosexual content involving its 10-year-old protagonist and a 14-year-old neighbour. Representatives of the NASUWT teachers' union and the conservative Christian Institute argued that the book should not be stocked in school libraries, and some newspapers suggested that doing so in England would be illegal due to the Section 28 ban on "promoting homosexuality" in schools. However, the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals supported libraries' purchase of Strange Boy, as did representatives of Stonewall and other gay rights organizations. Magrs noted that the book was "about 95% autobiographical" and described the controversy as "ludicrous".

Doctor Who

Magrs has written several novels, short stories and audio dramas relating to Doctor Who, many of which also feature his character Iris Wildthyme.

Iris was initially portrayed as an eccentric and unreliable Time Lady, whose TARDIS takes the form of a London AEC Routemaster double-decker bus (the route 22 to Putney Common), though in a series of short story collections and novels not written for the BBC, the character has been repurposed to remove any copyrighted aspects. Iris Wildthyme was originally created for Magrs' unpublished first novel, which was named after her; another version of Iris also appears in Marked for Life. The character features in all of Magrs' four contributions to BBC Books' Eighth Doctor Adventures, in several Big Finish Productions audio dramas by Magrs and other writers, in a novel series from Snowbooks and in short story and novella collections published by Big Finish and Obverse Books.

Magrs has also written licensed Doctor Who fiction without Wildthyme, including the 2007 novel, Sick Building, (which made the shortlist for the Doncaster Book Award), a variety of audio plays for Big Finish and the BBC audio series, Hornets' Nest, which marked the first time Tom Baker had returned to play the Doctor in a full-length drama since he left the role in 1981. After the success of Hornets' Nest, Magrs wrote two sequel series Demon Quest (2010) and Serpent Crest (2011).

The Adventures of Brenda and Effie

Magrs' current ongoing novel series is The Adventures of Brenda and Effie, starring Brenda, the Bride of Frankenstein, who has now retired and runs a B&B in Whitby. She and her friend Effie, a local white witch, investigate spooky goings-on in the town. As of January 2013, there have been six books in the series, the latest being Brenda and Effie Forever from Snowbooks. The fourth book, Hell's Belles, features characters from Magrs' early Phoenix Court books, while the fifth features characters from Magrs' Doctor Who audio, The Boy That Time Forgot.

A short story collection, A Treasury of Brenda and Effie (Obverse Books) and a seventh novel, Fellowship of Ink (snowbooks) were both released in 2017.

The characters have also appeared in a series of award-winning audios from Bafflegab.

Other novels

Magrs' other novels include Aisles (2003) and To the Devil – a Diva! (2004); he has also published several short stories. His novel Exchange was shortlisted for the 2006 Booktrust Teenage Prize and was longlisted for the 2007 Carnegie Medal.

His young adult novel, The Ninnies was listed by the Irish Times as one of the children's books of the year in 2012.

Later novels include two books about his cats, Fester and Bernard, The Story of Fester Cat and Welcome Home, Bernard Socks, a stand-alone novel, 666 Charing Cross Road (ISBN 978-0755359486), and a trilogy of novels about a frontier family on the planet Mars.

Art

In 2015, Magrs began producing drawings and watercolours every day. There followed exhibitions in Levenshulme and elsewhere in Manchester, as well as a series of prints which Magrs made available to buy.

Academic work

Magrs is a full-time writer, having formerly been a senior lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and having previously taught at the University of East Anglia. With Julia Bell, Magrs edited several issues of the University of East Anglia's literary journal Pretext and The Creative Writing Coursebook (2001).