Steve Parker (writer)

Steve Parker is a British science writer of children's and adult's books. He has written more than 300 titles and contributed to or edited another 150.^[1]

Life

Born in Warrington, Cheshire in 1952, Parker attended Strodes College, Egham and gained a BSc First Class Honours in Zoology at the University of Wales, Bangor. He worked as an exhibition scientist at the Natural History Museum, and as editor and managing editor at Dorling Kindersley Publishers, and commissioning editor at medical periodical GP, before becoming a freelance writer in the late 1980s. He is a Senior Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London. Parker is based in Suffolk with his family.^[2]

Publishing work

Parker's writing career began with 10 early titles in Dorling Kindersley's multi-award-winning Eyewitness series, from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. He has since worked for more than a dozen children's book publishers and been shortlisted for, among others, the Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize, Times Educational Information Book of the Year, and Blue Peter Book Award.^[3]

In 2013 Parker's title Science Crazy (QED) won the UK School Library Association's Information Book Award,^[4] and Fizzing Physics (QED) won the Hampshire Information Book Award.^[5]

Parker also writes adult books, recently including Extinction: Not the End of the World? (Natural History Museum, 2013),^[6] the million-selling The Human Body Book (Second Edition, Dorling Kindersley, 2013) and Kill or Cure, an Illustrated History of Medicine (Dorling Kindersley, 2013.) ^[7]

In 2014 Kill or Cure entered the New York Times Science Bestsellers ^[8] and also won the 2014 British Medical Association Book Award for Public Understanding of Science. ^[9]

Educational work

Parker travels extensively around Britain to hold talks, workshops and book signings at schools, libraries and science events.^[10][11]

References