Paul Cornell

Paul Douglas Cornell (born 18 July 1967) is a British writer best known for his work in television drama as well as "Doctor Who" fiction, and as the creator of one of the Doctor's spin-off companions, Bernice Summerfield.
As well as "Doctor Who", other British television dramas for which he has written include "Robin Hood", "Primeval", "Casualty", "Holby City" and "Coronation Street". For US television, he has contributed an episode to the modern-day set Sherlock Holmes series "Elementary".
Cornell has also written for a number of British comics, as well as Marvel Comics and DC Comics in America, and has had six original novels published in addition to his "Doctor Who" fiction.
Career.
Already known in "Doctor Who" fan circles, Cornell's professional writing career began in 1990 when he was a winner in a young writers' competition and his entry, "Kingdom Come", was produced and screened on BBC Two. Soon after, he wrote "", a novel for the Virgin New Adventures series of "Doctor Who" novels. "Timewyrm: Revelation" was a reworking of a serialised fan fiction piece Cornell had penned previously for the fanzine "Queen Bat". Several other "Doctor Who" novels followed, including the award-winning "Human Nature".
Cornell then began working for Granada Television, where he wrote for the popular children's medical drama "Children's Ward" and created his own children's series "Wavelength" for Yorkshire Television, which ran for two series. He made the crossover to working in adult television full-time in 1996, when he was one of the main contributors to Granada's supernatural soap opera "Springhill", which ran for two years on Sky One and later on Channel 4.
After a short stint on "Coronation Street", he began working for other production companies, including contributing an episode in 1999 to Red Production Company's anthology drama series "Love in the 21st Century" for Channel 4. His episode, entitled "Masturbation", starred Ioan Gruffudd as Jack. He was due to be one of the writers on Red Production Company's planned "Queer as Folk" spin-off series "Misfits", but the series was never made, being abruptly cancelled by Channel 4.
In the 21st century he has written mainly for the BBC, contributing episodes to all three of their regular medical dramas: "Casualty", "Holby City" and the daytime soap opera "Doctors". He also contributed to the 1950s-set Sunday evening prime time drama series "Born and Bred" and was one of the writers of the 2005 series revival of "Doctor Who", writing the episode "Father's Day". The episode was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form in 2006 and came third in terms of votes for its category. Cornell later wrote a two-part story for "Doctor Who"'s 2007 series, based on his 1995 Virgin New Adventures novel "Human Nature". The title of the first episode was also "Human Nature", while the second was titled "The Family of Blood". In 2008, the two episodes were nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.
In February 2006, Cornell announced in a post on his weblog that he would be writing an episode for the BBC's forthcoming "Robin Hood", produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for the same Saturday evening family slot as "Doctor Who". He later announced on his blog that he was also writing a second "Robin Hood" episode for later in the first series. His first episode, "Who Shot the Sheriff?", aired on BBC One on 21 October 2006. His second, "A Thing or Two About Loyalty", followed on 2 December 2006. He also wrote an episode for the second season of another Saturday evening family adventure programme, the ITV science-fiction series "Primeval", transmitted in February 2008.
He also wrote the one-off pilot "Pulse", which was shown on BBC Three in early June 2010.
Outside of television, he has been active in various other media, having written six "Doctor Who" novels for Virgin Publishing and BBC Books during the 1990s, three "Doctor Who" audio dramas for Big Finish Productions and a fully animated internet-broadcast "Doctor Who" adventure, "Scream of the Shalka" (starring Richard E. Grant as the Doctor) for bbc.co.uk in 2003. He has also written two mainstream science-fiction novels, "Something More" and "British Summertime" for Gollancz, and various novels, short stories and audio dramas based around a character he created for the New Adventures, Professor Bernice Summerfield, and whom he later licensed to Big Finish Productions.
He has also co-authored (often working with Keith Topping and Martin Day) several non-fiction books on television, including "The Guinness Book of Classic British TV", "X-treme Possibilities" (a guide to "The X-Files"), and "The Discontinuity Guide" (a humorous guide to "Doctor Who"). (Topping and Day's "Doctor Who" novel "The Devil Goblins from Neptune" was also based on an original idea with Cornell.) He has also written comics, both for "Doctor Who Magazine" and the "2000 AD" spin-off "Judge Dredd Megazine".
He has written "Wisdom", a 6-issue limited series for Marvel Comics' MAX imprint, featuring the character Peter Wisdom, with art by Trevor Hairsine and Manuel Garcia.
It was announced at the 2007 Wizard World Chicago comic book convention that Cornell would be following Chris Claremont on Marvel's "New Excalibur". Plans were subsequently changed with the cancellation of the "New Excalibur" title and Cornell's new project was announced as being titled "". The third trade paperback, "Vampire State", was nominated for the 2010 "Best Graphic Story" Hugo Award.
Cornell has also written "Young Avengers Presents" No. 4 (April 2008) and a Fantastic Four mini-series comic, "", which started in July 2008, which featured the team encountering characters from the pages of literary classics. In 2008, he wrote a comic which featured on the Doctor Who website. He has also written the "Young Avengers" limited series that ties into Dark Reign and "Black Widow: Deadly Origin" a mini-series that ties into the character's appearance in "Iron Man 2".
Cornell became the next "Action Comics" writer after "War of the Supermen". Cornell signed with DC Comics exclusively in 2010 as part of writing for "Action Comics". His 16-issue run on the series included number 900. In late 2010 and early 2011, Cornell completed nine issues set in Batman's world: "Knight & Squire", a six-issue miniseries, and a 3-issue run in "Batman & Robin", #17–19.
In September 2011, as part of DC's The New 52 relaunch, Cornell became the writer for the DC Comics titles "Demon Knights" and "Stormwatch". Cornell's last DC work was the 14-issue science fiction series "Saucer Country", which ended with the June 2013 issue.
Cornell is part of the regular panel of the podcast "SF Squeecast", which won the 2012 and 2013 Hugo Award for best fancast.
In January 2016, Cornell announced his return to television drama work when he told followers on his Twitter feed that he had written his first script for US television, contributing an episode to the CBS Sherlock Holmes series "Elementary".
In 2018, he started co-hosting (with Lizbeth Myles from the Verity! podcast) a podcast reviewing horror films made by Hammer Film Productions entitled Hammer House of Podcast.
Personal life.
In an interview on the ", Cornell stated that this entry in Wikipedia described him as "...both a Christian and a pagan...", which he has chosen not to correct as it illustrates his sympathies for the pagan world. He then goes on to state that he is an Anglican but is very "...Low Church, almost a Calvinist.."" and this is partly because he doesn't enjoy hymns.
Spiritual themes are not uncommon in his work (for example his novel "Something More"). Other frequent references in his work include owls.
Cornell is married to Caroline Symcox, currently the Vicar of St Mary's Church, Fairford, who also has written "Doctor Who"-based audio plays for Big Finish Productions on her own and with Cornell.
In 2010, he appeared as a contestant on an episode of the BBC Four quiz show "Only Connect".
Bibliography.
He has written novels, non-fiction, audio plays and comic scripts.
Short fiction.
Jonathan Hamilton stories.
About an out-of-uniform soldier in a parallel world where the ‘great game’ of European espionage continues into space.
Screenplays.
Some of the notable series and episodes he has worked on include: