Patrick Thorne

Patrick has been a full-time professional writer for all of his adult life, concentrating on travel and particularly skiing. Born in 1964 his first book was published at age 20. Patrick lives in the Scottish Highlands with his family, including wife and co-writer Sally, three ponies, dog, cat, rabbit, 12 hens, apricot and peach trees, as well as over 500 Christmas trees. For full profile information visit thesnowhunter.com Patrick has written eleven books of his own and been a contributor to a dozen or so other publications as well as an expert consultant/editor for others. Patrick’s books have been sold in Europe, Australia, South Africa, North America and Russia and many are still available second hand through Amazon Market Place. His first book, published in 1984, was An A - Z of Unemployment, a dictionary of information for people going through the unemployment process during the years of mass joblessness at that time. The second book, for Harper Collins, was a basic guide to ski holidays, The Essential Ski Holiday Guide published in 1985 when Patrick had only actually been to four ski resorts! In 1986 Patrick toured the Soviet Union at the invitation of the state publisher, Progress (Discovering some ski resorts in the Arctic Circle where skiing was prescribed free-of-charge by Russian doctors to keep the locals' blood circulating in the perpetual polar darkness). The resulting book, Life, We’re All In It Together was published worldwide shortly before the regime crumbled (and, luckily for Patrick, he was paid shortly before his agreed royalty would have devalued by several thousand percent!) In the late 1980s Patrick wrote three skiing guides for Swiss-based publisher Berlitz (Ski Guide Italy, Ski Guide France and Skiing The Alps – the latter for the North American market) and a general guide book to Austria (Off The Beaten Track: Austria) for US publisher Globe Pequot and a special guide for teenagers planning their first independent holidays, Breaking Away. In the 1990s Patrick moved increasingly in to CD ROM and then internet publishing, however he did write a second book for Globe Pequot in the early 1990s, the 120,000 word Off The Beaten Track, Scotland. In addition, between 1996 and 1998, two editions of The World Ski and Snowboarding Guide, targeted at travel agents, were published by Columbus Press in London and distributed in Europe and North America. The book used the Snow Hunter database Patrick had built to give information on 3,000 ski centres - more than five times as many ski centres as its closest competitor at the time. During the following few decades Patrick has written for The World Travel Dictionary and numerous editions of The World Travel Atlas for the same publisher. He also contributed entries on The Stranglers and Half Man Half Biscuit to The Rough Guide to Rock. In 2009 Patrick contributed the chapter on the Northern Highland to Frommers Best Walking Trips in Scotland and hiked up the UK’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, as part of the research. Patrick’s 2014 book 'Powder Retreats' has been the best selling ski book on Amazon ever since and has been translated in to French, German and Spanish editions and published worldwide. He has also written, with his son Robert, a self-published book about snow discovered in various forms on the different moons and planets of the solar system, Snow In Space.