Paul Wilson was born in 1960 in Blackburn, Lancashire, where he still lives. His novel, Do White Whales Sing at the Edge of the World? won the 1997 Portico Prize for Literature. Paul Wilson currently runs an employment project for people with severe learning disabilities, on behalf of Blackburn Social Services. He has also run community development projects (which play such a large part in Noah, Noah) and with the mentally ill in therapeutic communities.