The second of four daughters of university lecturers, Robinson grew up during the civil war in Zaria, Nigeria; Dorset and Yorkshire. Her father, P.H.Turner an economist and a biographer of David Livingstone established an educational trust and spearheaded the building of a non profit making private school in Zaria, Nigeria, which she attended with other local and overseas children including, theatre director, Rufus Norris. Her mother is a lecturer in mathematics with the Open University.
Robinson worked at Radio Aire, TV-am and Yorkshire Television before joining the BBC’s Faith and Ethics unit.
The author of over 40 books her first book, written to help her young daughter cope with a fear of spiders, Sarah The Spider, was published in 1995. The following year the sequel, Sarah The Spider, Prima Spiderina was short-listed for Best Picture Book by the English Association. She collaborated with illustrator Nick Sharratt on both Mixed Up Fairy Tales, which was featured in November 2007 in the CBS action drama The Unit, and Spells and Smells for which she was shortlisted by Nottinghamshire City Council for the Experian Big Three Award in 2002. Later that year, Ken Livingstone and the GLC invited her to write Pick It Up — an environmental book featuring litter detectives — which was read at a high profile launch by Sir Richard Attenborough.. The Spanish edition of The Princess's Secret Letters saw the main character, Princess Isabella become renamed as Princess Letitia in recognition of the marriage in 2004 of Letizia Alvarez, a journalist, to the Spanish Heir Apparent, Felipe, Prince of Asturias.
In September 2003 Robinson visited Durban, South Africa as part of an 8 person delegation to celebrate the Durban Book Appeal in which 60,000 donated books from Leeds were distributed at the Festival of Books, organised by READ, to resource understocked libraries in schools. She worked in schools and libraries in many of the most deprived townships and attended the opening of the new Hambanathi library.
Hilary is a supporter of, and has worked with, a number of reading initiatives with schools in inner city areas. She has campaigned against the move to promote age banding on children's books collaborated with authors, illustrators and editors to oppose the war on Iraq and supports author Alan Gibbon's campaign against cuts to the library service.. She is an occasional book reviewer for Writeaway . Hilary has appeared at the Edinburgh Children's Book Festival, the North of England Children's Book Festival, the Swansea Book Festival and the Sheffield Book Festival. She is a member of the Federation of Children's Book Groups.
Currently producing BBC Radio 2’s Good Morning Sunday with Aled Jones, recent BBC radio documentaries include:
Behind Enemy Lines (2009) presented by John McCarthy - an examination of the effect of captivity on survivors.
In His Hands (2007) presented by Candi Staton - a powerful documentary about music borne out of domestic abuse.
Turn Your Radio On (2008) presented by Don Maclean — the wit and wisdom of Ray Stevens.
Lenny Bruce Is Dead (2006) presented by Simon Amstell - produced to mark the 40th anniversary of the premature death of one of America's most outspoken and persecuted comedians.
To mark the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade Robinson produced Hang A Thousand Trees With Ribbons — the true story of the published slave Phillis Wheatley, narrated by Oscar-nominated actress Sophie Okonedo, and Private Peaceful to mark Remembrance 2007 with Robson Green.
In 2004 she won the Gillard Gold Award for Religious Programming and was highly commended with an Andrew Cross Award for D Day — 60 Years On - a live broadcast from Normandy. Writing in The Radio Magazine (issue 661)on 11 December 2004 after winning the Gillard Gold, Station Editor John Ryan described Hilary as "one of our secret weapons ... she has the ability to develop really creative treatments that make the religious subjects appeal way beyond the traditional audience for faith programmes."
Robinson has written features for The Times, The Times Educational Supplement, The Guardian, The Independent, The Yorkshire Post, Practical Parenting, Primary English, Family History Monthly and other specialist press.
In June 2009 Yorkshire Ridings Magazine published figures released by the Public Lending Rights Office which listed Hilary as No 7 in a list of top twenty authors living in Yorkshire.
Hilary Robinson is represented by Sophie Hicks at Ed Victor Ltd Literary Agency (London) and Christina O'Connor - Media Guru (Manchester).
A keen skier, Hilary is a member of the Downhill Only Club, based in Wengen, Switzerland. She is the cousin of Jonathan Luxton, solo horn with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon.
