Malcolm Rose is the prolific author of young-adult suspense novels that often use science to solve the quandaries presented. An instructor in chemistry for many years, Rose moonlighted as an author of realistic teen fiction and his efforts proved so successful that he eventually left teaching to devote his full time to writing. As Rose once explained to SATA: "I was born in Coventry, England, in 1953 and began writing stories as a hobby while taking a Ph.D. in chemistry at York University. Writing fiction was my escape from real life. My then girlfriend (now wife) was taking a subsidiary course on children's literature. At one point she read one of my efforts and commented that I ought to try to get it published. I had never thought of writing as anything other than a hobby. Besides, as I thought then, a budding chemist couldn't possibly be any good at it! Anyway, I joined a writers' club to find out how to submit a manuscript and, to cut a long story short, found a publisher in William Collins for my first novel, Rift."