[citation needed] Stewart was born in Salford and attended "a failing comprehensive that also 'educated' most of the Happy Mondays", which was demolished soon after he left it.
He started work, aged 16, in a factory in Newton Heath, and borrowed books from his local public library to read on his bus journey to and from there.
[6] He has a PhD from the University of Huddersfield (2015), his doctoral thesis being "Rebooting the lyrical story : structure, viewpoint and aspects of realism in short fiction".
To escape a troubled home life, Paul compares the people he knows with different species of birds, but he embarks upon a chaotic journey of self-discovery when he befriends a dangerous raven named Ashley.
Rupert Dastur praised the collection's "cheeky intellectualism, raves and rants, quiet solitude, and humour" and noted that its "major accomplishments involve the extraordinary spread of topics, styles, and characters".
His novel, Ill Will (2018), published by HarperCollins, responds to Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights , telling the story of Heathcliff's missing years.
[5] In 2020, Stewart was instrumental in obtaining and installing the blue heritage plaque now visible at the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton, which was commissioned by the then owners in association with Bradford Civic Society, along with financial support from locally based supermarket chain Morrisons.