Gail Honeyman

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Scottish writer Gail Honeyman at the bookfair "Festival du Premier roman" of Chambery (France) in May 2019. Gail Honeyman - 2019 (cropped).jpg
Scottish writer Gail Honeyman at the bookfair "Festival du Premier roman" of Chambéry (France) in May 2019.

Gail Honeyman (born 1972 [1] ) is a Scottish writer [2] whose debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine , won the 2017 Costa First Novel Award. [3]

Contents

Biography

Born and raised in Stirling in central Scotland [3] to a mother who worked as a civil servant and a father in science, [4] Honeyman was a voracious reader in her childhood, visiting the library "a ridiculous number of times a week". [4] [5]

She studied French language and literature at the University of Glasgow before continuing her education at the University of Oxford with a postgraduate course in French poetry. However, she decided that an academic career was not for her and started a string of "backroom jobs", first as a civil servant in economic development and then as an administrator at the University of Glasgow. [6]

While working as an administrator, Honeyman enrolled in a Faber Academy writing course, [5] submitting the first three chapters of what would become Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine to a competition for unpublished fiction by female writers, run by Cambridge's Lucy Cavendish College. [6] The novel, published in 2017, went on to earn numerous awards and wide critical acclaim. [3]

Books

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine won the 2017 Costa First Novel Award, and since then Honeyman has been interviewed often, including by The Guardian , The Daily Telegraph and Waterstones. Of her relationship with the book's titular character she told The Daily Telegraph: "Eleanor Oliphant isn't me, or anyone I know [but] of course I've felt loneliness – everybody does". [7]

In January 2018, Honeyman said she was working on a new novel, "set in a different period and location." [6] A book with the acting title Gail Honeyman Untitled Book 2 (Harper Collins, ISBN   9780008172169) has been listed with publication date 12 September 2024 [8] or 27 February 2025. [9]

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References

  1. "Gail Honeyman". Book Series in Order. 7 April 2019. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  2. "Scots author wins prize for 'completely fantastic' first book". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 "Costa First Novel Award Winner 2017" (PDF). Costa Book Awards. Archived from the original (pdf) on 3 January 2018. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  4. 1 2 "Scottish author Gail Honeyman: Turning 40 focused my mind..." Belfast Telegraph . 21 February 2018. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  5. 1 2 "Meet the New Faces of Fiction for 2017". The Guardian . 22 January 2017. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 Armitstaid, Claire (12 January 2018). "Gail Honeyman: 'I didn't want Eleanor Oliphant to be portrayed as a victim'". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  7. Woods, Judith (15 May 2018). "Gail Honeyman: 'I hope Eleanor Oliphant has helped to fuel the debate on loneliness'". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 10 August 2018.
  8. "Gail Honeyman Untitled Book 2". Bookshop.org. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  9. "Gail Honeyman Untitled Book 2". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved 6 August 2023.