Stephen Gregory has been called a horror writer, although his novels and short stories reflect a love of the countryside and especially his interest in birds. The Cormorant, which won the Somerset Maugham Award and was made into a BBC television film, was written in and around the mountains of Snowdonia. After a year as a screenwriter in Hollywood, Stephen spent fifteen years teaching in Borneo, and during the long, hot tropical evenings he wrote four more novels, set back home in rural England and Wales. He now lives in France with his wife Chris, in a small house beside the river Vienne, while they're slowly rebuilding a 16th-century fortified farmhouse.