David Massey is a British, award-winning novelist. Massey is published in the UK and Europe by The Chicken House and in the United States by Chicken House USA, an imprint of Scholastic Corporation
Massey began his writing career in 1989 as a reviewer for Brum Beat, and then for Focus newspapers in Birmingham. At the same time he began work as a presenter/producer for Network Eleven, a satellite sustaining service broadcasting from studios in Walsall. He went on to write and produce for a satellite sustaining service run by the charitable arm of IM Group in West Bromwich and then to install radio studios for them in the UK, Africa and Miami. In 2007 Massey and his wife set up an eco and emergency supplies business. The business was a semi finalist in the HSBC Startup Stars Awards 2009, and in 2012, won the Business in the Community award for excellence in the Climate Business Resilience category. Currently Massey works as Senior Technician (Film, TV and Radio) at Birmingham City University also known as BCU, in its Parkside studio complex. [1]
His first break into writing came through UK publishing company, The Chicken House run by Barry Cunningham. [2] The Chicken House published Massey's first novel, TORN [3] in August 2012 which was Lancashire Book of the Year winner the following year. In its first full year of circulation, TORN was long-listed for the Branford Boase Award, and the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize. David's first novel has also been voted one of the most important books of 2014 in the United States by a group of twelve educators from the National Council for the Social Studies [4] and has been nominated for the Georgia Peach awards 2014/15. [5] World Book Day [6] March 2013 saw the release of Massey's second YA or young adult fiction novel, TAKEN [7] in the UK. On World Book Day 2018 Massey's third novel BONE SURFERS [8] was released by Harvington Books.
Massey was born in the West Midlands to Robert Massey and Beryl Massey. His early schooling was at Ryland Bedford, followed by an honors degree in combined arts at the University Of Central England (now known as Birmingham City University) where he also earned his QTS Qualified Teacher Status. In 1989 David led an aid expedition to Romania in the wake of the Romanian Revolution, visiting Timișoara and Bucharest where his team were tasked with locating and reporting on the state of local orphanages. On his return Massey and the team visited the Berlin Wall and witnessed the destruction first hand.
Massey married his wife Debi in 2002, whose twenty year radio career includes three years presenting as the Hunter on BBC WM's Hunted. [9] They moved to the Stourbridge area in November of the same year, where they continue to reside.
Worcestershire is a ceremonial county in the West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands county to the north, Warwickshire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south, and Herefordshire to the west. The city of Worcester is the largest settlement and the county town.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school and with the help of his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, he faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
West Midlands is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the larger West Midlands region of England. A landlocked county, it is bordered by Staffordshire to the north and west, Worcestershire to the south, and is surrounded by Warwickshire to the east. The largest settlement is the city of Birmingham.
The Black Country is an area of England's Midlands. It is mainly urban, covering most of the Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall Metropolitan Boroughs, with the City of Wolverhampton sometimes included. The towns of Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre.
Dudley is a market town in the West Midlands, England, 6 miles (9.7 km) southeast of Wolverhampton and 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Birmingham. Historically part of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley. In the 2011 census, it had a population of 79,379. The Metropolitan Borough, which includes the towns of Stourbridge and Halesowen, had a population of 312,900. In 2014, the borough council adopted a slogan describing Dudley as the capital of the Black Country., a title by which it had long been informally known.
Smethwick is an industrial town in Sandwell, West Midlands, England. It lies 4 miles (6 km) west of Birmingham city centre. Historically it was in Staffordshire and then Worcestershire before being placed into then West Midlands county.
Halesowen is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the county of West Midlands, England.
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The Metropolitan Borough of Dudley is a metropolitan borough of West Midlands, England. It was created in 1974 following the Local Government Act 1972, through a merger of the existing Dudley County Borough with the municipal boroughs of Stourbridge and Halesowen.
Brierley Hill is a town and electoral ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England, 3 miles south of Dudley and 1 mile north of Stourbridge. Part of the Black Country and in a heavily industrialised area, it has a population of 13,935 at the 2011 census. It is best known for glass and steel manufacturing, although the industry has declined considerably since the 1970s. One of the largest factories in the area was the Round Oak Steelworks, which closed down and was redeveloped in the 1980s to become the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. Brierley Hill was originally in Staffordshire.
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The South Staffordshire line is a partially mothballed and active former mainline that connects Burton-upon-Trent to Lichfield in Staffordshire and formerly then to the West Midlands towns of Walsall, Wednesbury, Dudley and Stourbridge. However, Dudley and Stourbridge were already joined to the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway's (OW&WR) line just north of Dudley Station. It in essence, continued to Stourbridge along with Wednesbury and Walsall.
Steve "S. J." Watson is an English writer. He debuted in 2011 with the thriller novel Before I Go to Sleep. Rights to publish the book have been sold in 42 countries and it has continued to be an international bestseller.
John David Milner is an English magician and entertainer based in Stourbridge, West Midlands, UK. He has been active in magic since he was a child and is a member of the Inner Magic Circle with a gold star, the International Brotherhood of Magicians, and Equity.
Sarah McIntyre is a British-American illustrator and writer of children's books and comics. She graduated in 1999 from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in Russian and a minor degree in History of Art and earned her Master's Degree in Illustration at Camberwell College of Arts in 2007. She works from a studio in Bovey Tracey, Devon and lives with her husband, Stuart.
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John Homery Folkes FRIBA (1906-2000) was an English architect, archaeologist, and local historian.