Alex Shearer author page

Alex Shearer biography

Alex Shearer is an author for both children and adults and began his writing career as a scriptwriter. His television work includes The Two of Us, a 1990s sitcom starring Nicholas Lyndhurst, and his writing career also includes television series, films, stage plays and radio plays.

The Greatest Store in the World was screened as a feature-length BBC television film on Christmas Eve 1999, and The Speed of the Dark was shortlisted for the 2002 Guardian Fiction Prize for children’s books.

Tins, a children’s novel for ages 9 to 11, was published by Macmillan Children’s Books on 3 March 2006. The story follows Fergal, a boy whose tin collecting leads him to find a bloodied human finger and a note reading “Help”.

Shearer wrote Flying the Flag: The Complete Series 1-4, a BBC Radio 4 comedy drama set in a British embassy as the Cold War draws to a close. The four series were first broadcast between 21 April 1987 and 4 August 1992, and the audio edition was published by BBC Digital Audio on 1 July 2021.