Philippa Dickinson

Career

Puffin and Fighting Fantasy In 1974 Dickinson joined Puffin Books, working for Kaye Webb in the Puffin Club. She started there as a teenager and was persuaded to stay on rather than going to university. Having received the first completed manuscript, it was Dickinson who "diplomatically highlighted various inconsistencies" to its two authors Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. She noted that the two halves of the book were inconsistent (a product of having been written separately by Jackson and Livingstone) and that this included apparent differences in the rules. For example, the attributes for fighting ability, constitution and fitness, and luck were labeled by Jackson "Skill", "Stamina" and "Luck", and by Livingstone, "Combat Factor", "Strength Factor" and "Luck Factor". Also there were differences in how these were determined. Dickinson made observations on the text, such as pointing out that the way in which choices were presented was inconsistent, and noting that the use of the terms Werewolf and Wolfman were inconsistent. She pushed for the writing style to be aligned; it was obvious that there had been a change in writer half way through, and so at her prompting one of the writers rewrote the other's half.

Dickinson was the commissioning editor for the next two Fighting Fantasy books.

In 2014, Dickinson was Consultant Children's Publisher at Penguin Random House.

Books

Micro Games (1983), Puffin Books, with Patrick Bossert