Paul Stenning

Paul David Stenning (born 12 June 1976) is an English author and ghostwriter. He has written twenty-nine books, of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and biography. The best-known of his books is The Robert Pattinson Album, a biography of Robert Pattinson, first published in 2009 and appearing in seven languages since then.

Early life Stenning was born in Brighton in East Sussex. His family moved to Manchester when he was eight years old. Stenning attended Urmston Grammar School amongst others, including Bury Church of England High School.

Take That and early career 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.

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.

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

Periodical Journalism Stenning has said music was his first love and he wrote music reviews for fun during his teens. Stenning contributed a piece to The Independent newspaper on the anniversary of Michael Hutchence's passing.

Ghostwriter and author 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.

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". In 2006, Stenning interviewed Steven Adler live onstage at The Cavern Club in Liverpool.

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, U.S. Marshals 15 Most Wanted Fugitives Jody K Thompson

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. 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. After the book was released, Stenning gave talks on success at corporate events, festivals and schools.

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

Since 2018 he has been the official poet for the tourist board of Guinea-Bissau.

Stenning is the host of The Minder Podcast, launched in 2021. He also chaired a roundtable discussion for the Dragonfly podcast regarding the murder of Brett Cantor.

He was one of the authors involved with the Don't Steal This Book project; an empty book from almost 10,000 authors, protesting the theft of books by AI companies to train AI models.

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

Stenning has been a campaigner for animal rights since his teens and is a vegetarian. He is a fan of the Baltimore Orioles, New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers.