Terry Pratchett was born on 28th of April 1948, in Beaconsfield, Bucks to Eileen and David Pratchett. He says that his major source of education was the Beaconsfield Public Library, but school must have helped as well.
He felt a deep emotional attachment to his grandmother, and read and re-read his grandmother's single shelf of books, not knowing that he was getting an education. He even read the dictionary a few times.
After public school, he attended High Wycombe Technical High School, where he had his first story, "The Hades Business" in the school magazine, and later on in a science fiction magazine. He got his first short story published in 1971. It was called "The Carpet People," and earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. He didn't receive many reviews, but the ones he did get were excellent.
After school, he worked for the Bucks Free Press, the Western Daily Press, the Bath Chronicle, and as a Publicity Officer for Central Electricity Generating Board (now PowerGen) with responsibility for three Nuclear Power Stations. While there, he was noted for saying, "What leak? - Oh, that leak." During his duration of working as a Publicity Officer, he wrote his very first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic.
As a child, he always wanted to be an astronomer, but was awful at maths. After careful consideration, he found that he didn't want to look at space, but to observe the universe. So he decided to invent his own universe, with it's own rules, and see how it worked.
He is a major supporter of the Orangutan Foundation UK, and has based one of his characters in his Discworld books on an orangutan. He even went to Borneo with a film crew to try and get film of one in it's natural habitat. He was inspired by his early life so much, (Beaconsfield is on English Chalk Country) that he based three of his latest books on it. He is also a proficient goat's cheese maker.
To date, he has written over thirty books, and has won numerous awards for them. One of these includes the Carnegie Medal for his novel, "The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents". He is also currently the best selling author in all of the United Kingdom. Mr. Pratchett won his first award in 1989, the British Fantasy Award, for which he got Best Novel for his book, Pyramids.
Four years after that, in 1993, he was short listed for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. In that same year he won the award for Best Children's Book with the Writer's Guild. The book was Johnny and the Dead. The next few years were very good for him, because he was nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Johnny and the Dead in 1994, in 1996 he won the Nestle Smarties Book Prize (Best Children's Book, Johnny and the Bomb,) and in 1997 he was again short listed for the Carnegie Medal. (Johnny and the Bomb.) Probably his most famous award was won in 1998. This was the Order of the British Empire, (OBE) for his works in literature.
In 2001 he won the Carnegie Medal, in 2002, he won the WH Smith People's Choice award, in 2005, he was short listed for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and again in 2006. His latest honor was when he was short listed for the British Book Awards - Children's Book of the Year.
He also has a movie deal with the director of Spiderman 3, for his much renowned book, "The Wee Free Men."
He has had numerous PDF files and websites devoted to the quotes he has in his books. Some of my personal favorites are:
“Real Children don't go hoppity - skip unless they are on drugs.”
“Can you smell something? He said. “Smells like... a bit like someone's thrown away an old privy carpet?”
“Oh thankyou very much,” Said a voice very low in the darkness. “Oh, yes”
“Can't smell anything,” Angua lied.
“Liar.” Said the voice.
“Or hear anything.”
Relating to the mangy dog Gaspode.
“Ahahahaha! Ahahahahaha! Aahahahahaha! BEWARE!!!”
Yrs Sincerely, The Opera Ghost.
Terry Pratchett, now 59, is married to his wife, Lyn Pratchett, and has had a daughter, Rhianna Pratchett. They are living in a cottage at Salisbury, Somerset where he doesn't have a social life, and lives behind his computer, saying “I don't need a life, since it seems as though I am trying to lead three already.”
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