Alan K Baker was born in Birmingham, UK in 1964. After graduating from the University of Reading in 1991, he endured a series of increasingly unpleasant jobs, culminating in a nine-month stint as a meat-packer in a Sheffield sausage factory, which served to increase his fascination with the macabre and outlandish. Since 1997, he has published a number of non-fiction books on the paranormal and popular history, which have been translated into seven languages.