Paul Stenning

Stenning was born in Brighton in East Sussex. He had trials with the Brighton & Hove Albion youth team and wanted to be a footballer or a writer.[2][3] Stenning's primary school teacher remarked that he would be a writer at the age of four.[4]

His family moved to Manchester when he was eight years old.[5] Stenning attended Urmston Grammar School amongst others, including Bury Church of England High School. He did not attend college or university. Despite early encouragement at school, Stenning is a mostly autodidactic writer.[6]

Stenning wrote poetry through his late teens and submitted his first poem in late 1999, which was published as part of an anthology titled Magical Memories, a year later.[7]

During this time he worked for Take That as assistant to their financial advisor Simon Orange, the brother of Jason Orange. During his time working at the office in Cheadle he had an accident where he fell through a roof inside the building and was almost electrocuted.[8]

After leaving his work in finance, Stenning worked at the Frog and Bucket comedy club in Manchester.

Between 1998 and 2005 Stenning was employed in a Manchester record shop, Vinyl Exchange.

He also worked as a DJ, often playing sets before live concerts, particularly before shows at the Manchester Apollo.[9]

Stenning has said music was his first love and he wrote music reviews for fun during his teens.[5] In the mid-1990s he submitted reviews to Metal Hammer where he soon became a regular contributor. Other music magazines he wrote for included Rolling Stone, Record Collector, Metal Maniacs, Decibel, BraveWords, Terrorizer and Alternative Press. He has also written for FHM, Front and, after moving to Cyprus in 2008, the Cyprus Weekly. He continues to contribute to Record Collector most recently interviewing Fish and writing on Gamble Rogers.[10][11] Stenning contributed a piece to The Independent newspaper on the anniversary of Michael Hutchence's passing.[12]

Stenning's first book was on Guns N' Roses, an unofficial biography that was later cited as the most accurate book on the band by guitarist Slash.[13][14]

He also wrote unofficial biographies of Iron Maiden, Metallica, My Chemical Romance, Rage Against the Machine and AC/DC. Stenning describes Tommy Vance and especially the Friday Rock Show as big influences on his early career. He dedicated his biographies of Iron Maiden and Slash to Vance.[15][16]

He has conducted hundreds of interviews including Meat Loaf, Pete Best, Alice Cooper, Steve Guttenberg, Kathy Sledge, Peter Steele, John Myatt and Linda Hamilton. Stenning's interviews often run over the allotted time allowed. He spoke to Peter Steele and Leslie Easterbrook for almost 3 hours despite an interview restriction of an hour. Easterbrook told Stenning he asks "great questions".[7][14][17] In 2006, Stenning interviewed Steven Adler live onstage at The Cavern Club in Liverpool.[13][18]

After working on a biography of Robert Pattinson, Stenning focused on areas beyond music. Since 2009 he has worked primarily as a ghostwriter, working with Patty Schnyder, Jason Newsted, Frank Abagnale, Tomáš Berdych, Steven Adler, Adam Dubin,[19] U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted Fugitives Jody K Thompson[14] and British champion wrestler Ray Robinson.[20][21]

In 2013 Stenning released Success – By Those Who've Made It, which featured Mario Andretti, Jörgen Elofsson, Ching He Huang, Cherie Lunghi, Roy 'Chubby' Brown, Greg Merson, Susan Polgar, Phil Gallagher aka Mister Maker and Penelope Spheeris.[22] Anne Wafula Strike was the last personal biography featured in the book, which Stenning explained was because her story was the most powerful and the greatest example of success.[23][24] After the book was released, Stenning gave talks on success at corporate events, festivals and schools.[25]

He is working on biographies of Archbishop Makarios III and Jayne Mansfield, which he considers "labours of love".[14] In 2011 he met Margaret Nolan who was thinking of writing her memoir.[9]

Stenning's books have been released in multiple languages with several titles in Bulgarian, Polish and Portuguese.[26]

Since 2018 he has served as the official poet for the tourist board of Guinea-Bissau.[27][28][29][30][31][32]

Stenning has a wife and daughter. He travels around the world to ghostwrite and is based in the United States and Cyprus.[33]

Stenning has been a campaigner for animal rights since his teens and is a vegetarian.[34] He is a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.[4]

He released a podcast on the TV series Minder in July 2021.[35]

• Official website
• Paul Stenning on Twitter
• "Paul Stenning Discography at Discogs". Discogs.