In 1980 Vince Cross left behind a promising career teaching religious education to teenagers with every intention of becoming a writer. But the lure of rock’n’roll proved too great, and he passed the next decade and a half stoking the ‘star-maker machinery of popular song’.
On the way he wrote and produced million-selling cassettes of music for children, composed the music for an acclaimed TV animation eventually sold to more than fifty countries, and penned the words and music for a number of stage shows which have wowed holidaying crowds at Butlins’ holiday camps.
He has managed a professional recording studio, written jingle packages and TV commercials, and composed and arranged the music for more than 4,000 songs which today help millions of children learn English all around the globe. Now, still poor, he happily combines continuing to develop such materials with being Director of Music at his parish church, and developing a writing career
In 1997 he wrote a first children’s novel for Piccadilly Books about aggressive in-line skating : ‘MC3 Get In Line’. Shortly afterwards OUP published a picture book of his poems illustrated by Robin Bell Corfield : ‘All The Year Round’.
Since joining Pollinger’s he has written two of Working Partners/Macmillan’s highly successful ‘Puppy Patrol’ series, and five books for Scholastic’s ‘My Story’ series, one of which ‘Blitz : The Diary of Edie Benson’ has attracted particular attention. There have also been two non-fiction careers books for John Hunt Publishing. One is about sport. The other shares valuable hints on how to make it in the music biz. Not.
PUBLISHED WORKS
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