Jeff Noon was born in Droylsden, Manchester. After studying Visual Arts and Drama at college, he started writing plays, mostly on the Manchester fringe theatre scene. His first big success was the play, Woundings, which won a Mobil prize, and was subsequently put on at the Royal Exchange Theatre. He started writing novels in 1993, with Vurt, which won the Arthur C Clarke Award. This was followed by Pollen, Automated Alice, Nymphomation and Pixel Juice, all of which explore a strange, futuristic remix of Manchester. His work moved away from such overt science fiction ideas with Needle in the Groove, a fictional history of the city's music scene, seen through a liquid medium. His latest book, Cobralingus, sets out a new way of creating narratives, using ideas and themes borrowed from electronic music software. He's currently working on a road novel -- 'four people in a beat up car, travelling through a weird, damaged England'.