Authors

I was born in Nottingham and left school at 16 to join the merchant navy. I spent the next seven years sailing around the world. I left the sea to become a rock star, but became an ice-cream van driver instead. After that I got a job as an actor. Like you do.


Since then, I’ve acted in childrens’ theatre, as well as on the telly and in movies. I was even a comedian for ten years. I called myself Johnny Immaterial. I’ve got awards to prove it!


My proper job’s writing though. I’ve written lots of things for TV and radio, as well as picture books and books for older children and teenagers, such as the Yo! Diary! series, Love Dad, Fame Thing, Clone Zone and Diary of a Trainee Rock God.


I never actually meant to live in Edinburgh. It just kind of happened. I’m glad it did though. From one side of my house I can see Arthur’s Seat. From the other I can The Pentland hills. As I write these words I look out my study window and see a number 33 bus go past. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.


Visit Jonathan’s own website at www.jonathanmeres.co.uk.


An extract from All Change By Jonathan Meres

There’s just something about the number 15 I really like. Not that I actually dislike any of the other numbers. I’ve got nothing against those guys at all. It’s nothing personal. The 44 . . . the 31 . . . the 8 . . . the 26 . . . the 11. They’re perfectly nice numbers. It’s just that . . . I don’t know. There’s just something about the number 15 that makes it special, that’s all. Something that makes it, well, just different I suppose. I can’t explain.
  I think the colour’s probably got something to do with it. Proper red. Not something in between. Not some shade of red that can’t seem to make up its mind and has to have some stupid name, like Moroccan Kiss, or Sunset Blaze. No – the number 15 is just plain red.

Read the full story in Our City, available from Polygon in November 2008.