Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 and is still not dead. He started work as a jopurnalist one day in 1965 and saw his first corpse 3 hours later, work experience meaning something in those days. After doing about every job it's possible to do in provincial journalism, except of course covering Saturday afternoon football, he joined the Central Electricity Generating Board and became press officer for four nuclear powerstations. He'd write a book about his experiences if he thought any one would believe it.

All this came to an end in 1987 when it became obvious that the Discworld series was much more enjoyable than real work.

Terry Pratchett lives in the West Country where he tries to write books in between answering mail. He lives in constant dread that some one will find out how enjoyable he finds writing, and stop him doing it.