Mohammad Awad is a marine biologist from Kuwait who is interested in researching zooplankton, a field not so commonly explored in the Middle East – a region whose waters are home to numerous zooplankton taxa including fish larvae and a lot of important commercial fish and shrimp. The author has completed his first degree at Kuwait University in 2002, finished his Master’s degree at the University of Glasgow, UK in 2008 and currently doing his PhD in UK at the University of Sheffield about food web interactions, especially between plankton and larval fish and he has published scientific papers in his field, most of them in the Journal of Crustaceana under the name Mohammad Ali. The Author’s full name is Mohammad Awad Ali and he is using the name before the last since most of the people in his country know him by.

Writing for children is an essential part of the author’s life in order to educate them about science in a very simple, fun, interactive and creative way from an early age. The author also believes comics and cartoons are good and powerful contemporary tools to educate children about science, good morals and other things in life according to his aforementioned idea and he is very keen to explore these areas. The author has started writing when he was 16 years old at high school in Kuwait in his mother language (Arabic). Also, his year in Glasgow gave him the chance to meet most of the famous comic artists, writers and publishers in UK who had kindly offered him a lot of advice and directions to improve his skills, especially Mr. Ferg Handley, the writer of DC Comics Commando, Marvel Comics the Spectacular Spiderman and many more.

The author is married and a father of a boy (5 years old) and a girl (1 year old). He sometimes depends on his son’s opinion about what he is writing and the art work done by the artists his father is collaborating with.

Discovering different cultures and parts of the world is what the author also does by travelling and interacting with people about different issues plus learning different languages beside Arabic, English and Japanese. We are all citizens of Earth (as said in Japan) and we must know more about each other in order to understand, respect and co-exist with each other because we are humans after all despite cultural and ideological differences that are well respected, said the author. The author’s love for travelling have also come from his parents since his father was a diplomat who served for 30 years in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kuwait and that is why he was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1978. The only places the author has not been to yet are Arctic, Antarctica, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Middle and South of the African continent. The author also love to photograph the places he visits to record the moments and he has a lot of pictures on his Facebook and Instagram pages.

Wade the Whale is the author’s first published story in English since he has published two short story collection books in Arabic in 2004 (“اللهب الأسود” The Black Flame and “أبقيتني لنهايتك” Kept me for Your End as translated by him) and wrote a children’s play in Arabic (“أستاذ نزار وشباب الكشافة” Teacher Nazar and the Scouts as translated by him) that was performed in Kuwait in 2010. He has also published a short children’s story in Japanese (“子羊プランクトン” The Planktonic Lamb as translated by him) at Kochi University’s Writers’ Circle Magazine in 2011 and still discovering more opportunities in UK and worldwide in screen-writing and comic scripts. Also, having 27 March (International Theatre Day) as his birthday really inspires the author to try his best in writing and to explore the stage once more in the future.

The author was awarded a full PhD scholarship from the Japanese Government in 2010 and only spent about seven months of it since his employer/sponsor in Kuwait (Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research) was worried about the situation after the horrible tsunami that resulted in Fukushima nuclear crisis in March 2011. Therefore, his sponsor decided to transfer his PhD to Sheffield. Being in the south of Japan (Kochi) at the time of the crisis that occurred in the north made him really sad, especially when seeing the beautiful places that he has visited in the north are drowning and people being in tents in the cold! Especially that he loves Japan and the Japanese culture and he was learning Japanese for years in Kuwait before his first visit to Japan in 2007.

The author’s current plans now are to complete his PhD and produce more stories like Wade the Whale in addition to other stories as comics and his door is open for suggestions and comments.