Biography Wikipedia
Wikipedia:
Ben Rice (born 1972) is a prize-winning British author.
Rice was born in Tiverton, Devon, educated at Blundell's School and read English literature at Newcastle University, Wadham College, Oxford and the University of East Anglia (MA).
His debut novella Pobby and Dingan (later filmed as Opal Dream) was awarded the Somerset Maugham Award in 2001 (as well as being shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize), and in 2003 Granta named him as one of their twenty "Best of Young British Novelists". Pobby and Dingan is about a small girl, her two imaginary friends, and her older brother who gradually learns that just because one can't see something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Disguised as a children's story, this emotional tale is appreciated by readers of all ages.
He has also written a second novella, Specks in the Sky set at a remote 'camel safari centre' in the United States where Ryder Jarvis lives with her mother. The specks in the sky are in fact parachutists on a secret mission who use the Jarvis's home as a base to find one of their number who has not appeared.