Catherine Johnson (novelist)

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Catherine Johnson

Catherine johnson 2023 1.jpg
Johnson in 2023
BornSylvia Hope Ruxton
1962 (age 6162)
London, England
OccupationNovelist and screenwriter
Education St Martin's School of Art
Website
www.catherinejohnson.co.uk

Catherine Johnson FRSL (born 1962) is a British author and screenwriter. She has written several young adult novels and co-wrote the screenplay for the 2004 drama film Bullet Boy (directed by and co-written with Saul Dibb). [1]

Contents

Background and career

Catherine Johnson was born in London, England, in 1962. Her father was Jamaican and her mother was Welsh. Johnson grew up in North London and attended Tetherdown Primary School. Later she studied film at St Martin's School of Art, before turning to writing. [2] [3]

Her first book, The Last Welsh Summer, was published by Welsh publisher Pont Books in 1993. She has since written and published 20 novels, including two for children about pioneering Arctic explorer Matthew Henson. [4] In 1999 her book Landlocked was honoured as an International Youth Library White Raven book. [5] Other accolades include the 2014 Young Quills Award for best historical fiction for over-12s for her 2013 book Sawbones, which was also shortlisted for the Rotherham Book Award, the Salford Children's Book Prize and the Hoo Kids Book Award. [6] Johnson won the 2019 Little Rebels Award for Radical Children's Fiction for her 2018 book Freedom. [7] [8]

Johnson has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the London Institute, a Writer in Residence at Holloway Prison and a Reader in Residence at the Royal Festival Hall's Imagine Children's Literature Festival. [2] She has served as a judge for the Jhalak Prize, first awarded in 2017. [9] [10]

In 2019, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [11] [12] [13]

Johnson is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa , edited by Margaret Busby. [14] [15]

Bibliography

Awards

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References

  1. "Bullet Boy: Making Of". Archived from the original on 7 October 2009. Retrieved 20 February 2010.
  2. 1 2 "Catherine Johnson". The British Council . Retrieved 20 February 2010.
  3. Catherine Johnson. "About Catherine". Archived from the original on 5 May 2010. Retrieved 20 February 2010.
  4. "Great Lives | Matthew Henson, Arctic explorer and pioneer". BBC Radio 4 . April 2023. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
  5. "White Ravens". International Children's Digital Library. Retrieved 20 February 2010.
  6. "Books", Catherine Johnson website.
  7. "Catherine Johnson is the 2019 Little Rebels Award Winner", The Little Rebels Children's Book Award, 10 July 2019.
  8. Katie Mansfield, "Johnson triumphs at Little Rebels Award for Radical Fiction", The Bookseller , 10 July 2019.
  9. Farhana Shaikh, "The Jhalak Prize longlist", The Asian Writer, 12 January 2017.
  10. "Our Judges", Jhalak Prize, 2022.
  11. "Myriad authors awarded at the Royal Society of Literature summer party", Myriad Editions.
  12. "RSL Elects 45 new Fellows and Honorary Fellows" Archived 28 February 2021 at the Wayback Machine , The Royal Society of Literature, 25 June 2019.
  13. "Catherine Johnson", The Royal Society of Literature.
  14. Kevin Le Gendre, "Daughters Of Africa", Echoes Magazine, March 2019.
  15. Catherine Johnson at Curtis Brown.