 |
Cassandra Clark | |
|---|---|
| Born | 24 May 1942 Bridlington, East Yorkshire, England |
| Pen name |
|
| Occupation | Novelist, playwright |
| Alma mater | |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| www | |
Cassandra Clark is an English novelist and playwright.
|
Cassandra Clark | |
|---|---|
| Born | 24 May 1942 Bridlington, East Yorkshire, England |
| Pen name |
|
| Occupation | Novelist, playwright |
| Alma mater | |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| www | |
Cassandra Clark is an English novelist and playwright.
Clark grew up in the East Yorkshire and attended a girls' grammar school before reading English and Philosophy at Bedford College, London.[ citation needed ]
After graduating, Clark divided her time between running a print-making business with her then husband, tutoring at the Open University and writing. Her first professional commission was a play for BBC Radio 4 called Down But Not Out, which was followed shortly afterwards by another commission, and representation with theatrical agent Peggy Ramsay. [1] Clark was commissioned to write plays for radio and television, with theatre plays produced for the York Theatre Royal, the Croydon Warehouse in London and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. [1]
After a divorce, needing to support her two young children, Clark met romance writer Sara Craven at a BBC networking event. Craven advised her to "read as many as you can for six months, then write one". [1] Clark followed the advice and became a writer for Mills & Boon, writing over 30 titles [2] and seeing her daughters through school and into further education.
Clark also ran a lunch-time theatre and collaborated with composers on two music theatre works, one based on the life of Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima for York Arts Centre and the second, The Death of Purcell, for Smith Square Hall in London, with two choirs and orchestra conducted by Ronald Corp.[ citation needed ]
In 1991, she returned to study a Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia.[ citation needed ]
After a decade of caring for her elderly parents, Clark was commissioned to write a stage play for the Live Theatre Company in Newcastle and invited to Edward Albee's "Writers' Barn" in Montauk, New York to complete the final draft of the play, a trip that would be cut short by the catastrophic fall of the Twin Towers. [3]
After training as a psychotherapist in North Yorkshire, and the death of her parents, Clark moved to London and began a series of Medieval mystery novels. Hangman Blind, the first of a 12-book series, was published by John Murray in 2008 and features a nun sleuth, Hildegard of Meaux. It received positive reviews from The Guardian , [4] Financial Times [5] and the Historical Novels Review [6] and was praised for its thorough historical research by the East Riding News. The final book in the series, Dark Waters Rising was praised by Kirkus Reviews as "A fitting conclusion to an excellent series that immerses readers in medieval times and deeply conceived characters." [7]
Subsequent books in the series were published by Macmillan/Minotaur [8] and the collection was followed by a trilogy about the murder of King Richard II and the disappearance of Chaucer. The Brother Chandler series was published by Severn House [9] between 2020 and 2024. [10] In July 2024, she was interviewed about her writing life by the Bournemouth Writing Festival. [1]
Clark currently divides her time between North Yorkshire and the English South Coast and is working on a screen adaptation of the Abbess of Meaux mystery series and a new stage play about free speech and the brief life of William Sawtrey, the first man to be burned in England for heresy.
Clark is a member of the Society of Authors, Crime Writers' Association and the Historical Writers Association. [11]
The Abbess of Meaux Series
The Broken Kingdom Series
