"One of the most provocative and unsettling of contemporary writers" - Andy Hedgecock (Interzone)

Stephen Volk was the creator/writer of ITV1's multi award-winning paranormal drama series Afterlife starring Lesley Sharp and Andrew Lincoln, and the notorious (some say legendary) BBCTV "Halloween hoax" Ghostwatch, which spooked the nation, hit the headlines, and caused questions to be raised in Parliament. 

His latest feature film, co-written by director Nick Murphy. is The Awakening, a supernatural mystery starring Rebecca Hall (The Prestige, The Town), Dominic West (The Wire) and Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake).

Other credits include Ken Russell's Gothic, a trippy retelling of the Mary Shelley/ Frankenstein story starring Gabriel Byrne, Natasha Richardson and Timothy Spall; The Guardian, directed and co-written by William Friedkin; Superstition starring Mark Strong and Charlotte Rampling; and Octane starring Madeleine Stowe and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.  For television, he has written stand-alone scripts for C4's Shockers and BBC1's Ghosts. He also won a BAFTA for his short film script The Deadness of Dad starring Rhys Ifans. 

His first collection of crime, horror and science-fiction short stories, Dark Corners, was published by Gray Friar Press in 2006, from which his story 31/10 (a sequel to Ghostwatch) was nominated for both a British Fantasy and a Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award.  More recently his novella Vardoger has earned him a nomination for both a Shirley Jackson and a British Fantasy Award and his stories have been selected for Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Best British Mysteries and Best New Horror.  He also writes a regular comment piece for the magazine Black Static, called "Coffinmaker's Blues". 

Before becoming a full-time writer he worked as an advertising copywriter, notably for Ogilvy Benson and Mather, winning a Silver Lion, IPA Effectiveness in Advertising Award and two D&ADs. Before that, he studied Graphic Design at Coventry College of Art and was a winner of the UNESCO/BBCTV/ICOGRADA/ASIFA International Animated Film Contest for Young People, after which he gained a postgraduate diploma in Radio Film and Television at Bristol University's Department of Drama.

He was born in Pontypridd, South Wales, and now lives in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire with his wife, the sculptor Patricia Volk, and a cat he doesn't like.

Photograph (above) by Jonathan Hall (Clerkenwell Films/ITV). Below: by Alex Yallop (Portrait by Jennifer McRae)

Bottom: photograph by Ian Drake (imagebytesphotography.com)