A primary school teacher for 18 years, Antony taught in a number of different schools, including several in London and one in Canada. He was born in Berkshire in 1971, and now lives in a tiny North Yorkshire village with his wife, Louise.
He regularly visits primary schools in the North East to deliver writing workshops to Key Stage 2 classes, which he finds enormously enjoyable! When not doing that, or writing, he works for the educational software company, 2Simple, and has written a number of stories for their guided-reading resource, Serial Mash.
Antony also writes for adults, using the pen-name David Hall. The title story in his collection of short stories, And I Wish I’d Asked Why, was one of 5 finalists in the 2014 Tethered By Letters international short story competition.
He has a passion for drawing and painting, and has illustrated a number of children's novels including his own. He loves to paint the North Yorkshire landscape using oils and sells his work in local galleries.
He grew up on a literary diet of Tolkien, Alan Garner and Susan Cooper, and spent countless hours lost in their fantasy worlds. As an adult, he has developed a fascination for history, both recent and ancient.
Though hopelessly out of practice, I still like to consider myself an archer! This involves trudging through forests in all weathers, shooting at targets from various distances, up and down hills, between trees, losing expensive arrows and failing to win any competitions. But what really matters is that it gives one tiny taste of what it might have been like to be a medieval hunter.