Kate Atkinson is an English writer of novels, plays and short stories. She has written historical novels, detective novels and family novels, incorporating postmodern and magical realist elements into the plots. Her debut, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book Award, the precursor to the Costa Book Award, in 1995. The novels Life After Life and A God in Ruins won the Costa Book Award for novel in 2013 and 2015. She is also known for the Jackson Brodie series of detective novels, which has been adapted into the BBC One series, Case Histories.
Helen Dunmore FRSL was a British poet, novelist, and short story and children's writer.
The University of East Anglia's Creative Writing Course was founded by Sir Malcolm Bradbury and Sir Angus Wilson in 1970. The M.A. has been regarded among the most prestigious in the United Kingdom.
Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet.
Emma Donoghue is an Irish Canadian novelist, screenwriter, playwright and literary historian. Her 2010 novel Room was a finalist for the Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Donoghue's 1995 novel Hood won the Stonewall Book Award and Slammerkin (2000) won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards. Room was adapted by Donoghue into a film of the same name. For this, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Ali Smith CBE FRSL is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. Sebastian Barry described her in 2016 as "Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting".
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, Every Day in it Is Mother's Day, was released in 1985. She went on to write 12 novels, two collections of short stories, a memoir, and numerous articles and opinion pieces.
Elif Shafak is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, public speaker, political scientist and activist.
Jon McGregor is a British novelist and short story writer. In 2002, his first novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize, making him then the youngest-ever contender. His second and fourth novels were longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006 and 2017 respectively. In 2012, his third novel, Even the Dogs, was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award. The New York Times has labelled him a "wicked British writer".
The Pura Belpré Award is a recognition presented to a Latino or Latina author and illustrator whose work best portrays the Latino cultural experience in a work of literature for children or youth. It was established in 1996. It was given every other year since 1996 until 2009 when it was changed to be given annually.
Frances Hardinge is a British children's writer. Her debut novel, Fly by Night, won the 2006 Branford Boase Award and was listed as one of the School Library Journal Best Books. She has also been shortlisted for and received a number of other awards for both her novels as well as some of her short stories.
Maggie O'Farrell, RSL, is a novelist from Northern Ireland. Her acclaimed first novel, After You'd Gone, won the Betty Trask Award, and a later one, The Hand That First Held Mine, the 2010 Costa Novel Award. She has twice been shortlisted since for the Costa Novel Award for Instructions for a Heatwave in 2014 and This Must Be The Place in 2017. She appeared in the Waterstones 25 Authors for the Future. Her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death reached the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list. Her novel Hamnet won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020, and the fiction prize at the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Awards. The Marriage Portrait was shortlisted for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction.
Tabitha Sayo Victoria Anne Suzuma is a British writer. She was born in 1975 and lives in London. She used to work as a primary school teacher and now divides her time between writing and tutoring. She is known for her novel Forbidden which is based on a taboo relationship between brother and sister.
Patrick Ness FRSL is an American-British author, journalist, lecturer, and screenwriter. Born in the United States, Ness moved to London and holds dual citizenship. He is best known for his books for young adults, including the Chaos Walking (2008–2010) trilogy and A Monster Calls (2011).
Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master's thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.
Francis Spufford FRSL is an English author and teacher of writing whose career has shifted gradually from non-fiction to fiction. His first novel Golden Hill received critical acclaim and numerous prizes including the Costa Book Award for a first novel, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Ondaatje Prize. In 2007 Spufford was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Louisa Young is a British novelist, songwriter, short-story writer, biographer and journalist, whose work has appeared in 32 languages. By 2023 she had published seven novels under her own name and five with her daughter, the actor Isabel Adomakoh Young, under the pen name Zizou Corder. Her eleventh novel, Devotion, appeared in June 2016. She has also written three non-fiction books, The Book of the Heart, A Great Task of Happiness: The Life of Kathleen Scott and her memoir, You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol, an account of her relationship with the composer Robert Lockhart and of his alcoholism. Her most recent novel, Twelve Months and a Day, was published in June 2022 in the UK, and in the US in January 2023 (Putnam). She is currently working on three new volumes of The Cazalet Chronicles, by Elizabeth Jane Howard. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2014.
Katherine Rundell is an English author and academic. She is the author of Impossible Creatures, named Waterstones Book of the Year for 2023. She is also the author of Rooftoppers, which in 2015 won both the overall Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story, and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. She is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and has appeared as an expert guest on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Start the Week, Poetry Please, Seriously.... and Private Passions.
Sally Rooney is an Irish author and screenwriter. She has published four novels: Conversations with Friends (2017), Normal People (2018), Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021), and Intermezzo (2024). The first two were adapted into the television miniseries Normal People (2020) and Conversations with Friends (2022).
