Born: 8th February 1962
Episodes Broadcast: 2018

The daughter of emigrants from Barbados, Malorie Blackman was born in Clapham, London. Always a keen writer, her creativity was fired by her interest in programmes like Doctor Who and Star Trek. When she was thirteen years old, Blackman's imagination became a vital refuge following the collapse of her parents' marriage, providing her with a mechanism to work through her heartbreak. As a teenager, she aspired to teach English and drama but, after encountering discouragement from a careers adviser due to her race, she instead became interested in computer programming and enrolled at Thames Polytechnic. After working at Reuters for several years, Blackman again felt the lure of her creative instincts, and she began to take night classes at the City Literary Institute. She would later graduate from a scriptwriting program offered by the National Film and Television School.

Blackman was particularly interested in writing for children, but she endured more than eighty rejections as she sought a publisher during the late Eighties. Finally, in 1990, The Women's Press released her debut book, Not So Stupid!: Incredible Short Stories. Novels such as Hacker and Pig-Heart Boy were soon drawing awards and critical praise, as Blackman sought to improve the representation of people of colour in children's literature. She started writing for television in the mid-Nineties, including an adaptation of Pig-Heart Boy. Blackman and her husband, computer programmer Neil Morrison, had daughter Elizabeth in 1996.

In 2001, Blackman launched the successful Noughts & Crosses series of novels and novellas

In 2001, Blackman launched the successful Noughts & Crosses series of novels and novellas. Running for twenty years, it tackled themes of racism and segregration in an alternative-universe Britain. On television, she provided scripts for Byker Grove and Jackanory Junior. Blackman was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2008. In 2013, she was named the United Kingdom's eighth Children's Laureate. The same year, Blackman contributed the Seventh Doctor short story The Ripple Effect to a Puffin Books series which celebrated Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary.

Blackman then had the opportunity to write for Doctor Who on television, with 2018's Rosa bringing together Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor and American civil rights icon Rosa Parks. In the process, she became the first person of colour credited with a Doctor Who script; Vinay Patel would follow suit later the same year, with Demons Of The Punjab. During the Twenties, Blackman was an executive producer of the Noughts + Crosses television adaptation.