Born: 18th July 1967 (as Paul Douglas Cornell)
Episodes Broadcast: 2005, 2007

Paul Cornell was born in Chippenham, Wiltshire and began to write at a young age. His love of Doctor Who led him to create fiction for a number of fanzines during the Eighties. Cornell completed a Master of Arts in writing at Lancaster University and successfully entered a BBC2 competition to write a short film for Debut On Two in 1990. The same year, he made his first contribution to the comic strip in Doctor Who Magazine with Stairway To Heaven, a Seventh Doctor adventure co-written with editor John Freeman. In 1991, Cornell adapted a piece of his fan fiction as Timewyrm: Revelation, the fourth installment in Virgin Publishing's Doctor Who: The New Adventures range of original Seventh Doctor novels. In so doing, he helped establish that the series offered the opportunity for talented fans to become professionally-published authors, paving the way for many writers to follow.

Cornell would write four further New Adventures novels, including 1992's Love And War, for which he created the popular companion Bernice Summerfield. Virgin also tapped him to launch the Missing Adventures line in 1994, with the Fifth Doctor vampire story Goth Opera. When BBC Books took back the Doctor Who licence from Virgin, the New Adventures continued as a showcase for Benny Summerfield, with Cornell providing the inaugural volume, 1997's Oh No It Isn't!. He also wrote an Eighth Doctor novel, The Shadows Of Avalon, for the new range from BBC Books in 2000. Cornell collaborated with Keith Topping and Martin Day on a number of television guidebooks, including 1995's wry Doctor Who: The Discontinuity Guide. He returned to scriptwriting in the late Nineties, when he was commissioned for Children's Ward by future Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies. Cornell also worked on Springhill, Coronation Street and Love In The 21st Century, while creating the family drama Wavelength.

Cornell began publishing original novels, starting with 2001's Something More

In 2000, Cornell edited The Dead Men Diaries, the first of several Bernice Summerfield and Doctor Who short story anthologies for Big Finish Productions. The same year, he wrote The Shadow Of The Scourge, a Seventh Doctor adventure for Big Finish's range of Doctor Who audio dramas. Cornell's Eighth Doctor play Seasons Of Fear, released in 2002, was co-written with his wife, vicar Caroline Symcox, whom he married that year. They would have a son, Thomas, in 2012. Meanwhile, Cornell began publishing original novels, starting with 2001's Something More from Gollancz. His television work in the early part of the new century included Doctors, several episodes of Casualty, Holby City, and an installment of Born And Bred for another future Doctor Who showrunner, Chris Chibnall.

Cornell was recruited by BBC Online to develop a new Ninth Doctor for a series of Doctor Who webcasts, which was intended to be the official continuation of the programme. Only the initial story, The Scream Of The Shalka, was produced, however. The project suffered from poor timing, as its release in 2003 came in the wake of the announcement that Russell T Davies would be bringing Doctor Who back to television. Cornell novelised the story for BBC Books in 2004, but an even better consolation prize was his invitation to write for the revived series. Davies knew that Cornell's Doctor Who novels had demonstrated an ability to capture the human element, and he was keen to bring this emotionally-compelling approach to the screen. In 2005, Father's Day saw Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor meeting Pete Tyler, the father of companion Rose, for the first time. Cornell then adapted his 1995 New Adventures novel, Human Nature, as an acclaimed 2007 television story for David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor.

Cornell began writing for Marvel Comics in 2007, including a lengthy run on Captain Britain And MI: 13. He moved to DC Comics in 2010, writing for titles like Action Comics, Demon Knights and an original work called Saucer Country for the Vertigo imprint. Cornell then returned to Marvel, where he took over Wolverine for almost two years. Meanwhile, his more recent television work has included episodes of Robin Hood, Primeval and American series Elementary. Cornell also forged a successful relationship with publisher Tor Books, developing the Shadow Police series of urban fantasy novels from 2013, followed by the rural-set Lychford novellas from 2015. In 2018, BBC Books published his novelisation of Steven Moffat's Twice Upon A Time, the final adventure for Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor.