Gareth Thompson | |
|---|---|
 Author Gareth Thompson | |
| Born | 25 September 1964 |
| Occupation | Author |
| Years active | 2006-present |
| Website | www.gareththompson.co.uk |
Gareth Thompson is an author who lives in Kendal, United Kingdom.
Gareth Thompson | |
|---|---|
| Author Gareth Thompson | |
| Born | 25 September 1964 |
| Occupation | Author |
| Years active | 2006-present |
| Website | www.gareththompson.co.uk |
Gareth Thompson is an author who lives in Kendal, United Kingdom.
Thompson obtained a degree in journalism at the London College of Printing and later worked for the trade magazine Music Week. He was also Deputy Editor of the theatre website Whatsonstage.com. He has worked with endangered sea turtles on Crete, and performed street music in Cuba, as well as directing arts for adults with learning difficulties. He also worked for the charity OXFAM. On returning to Cumbria he began writing his first novel, while assisting a local junior school with reading and drama groups. A scheme for new writers in Cumbria, promoted by North West Arts, gained him a connection with Man Booker-listed novelist John Murray, who helped develop his work. He was also a major contributor to 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die published by Cassell/Quarto.
Published by Random House Children's Books in, it portrays the bond of friendship between a teenage lad, and Harlequin—a 'boy-giant' who lives rough in an abandoned shack, disguising himself with clown's make up and an old hat. The novel was nominated for the Branford Boase Award.
Thompson's second book, Sunshine to the Sunless, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and the UK Literacy Award. Set in Millom, it narrates the early life of tormented teenager Andrew Kindness, who witnessed a terrible tragedy on the local estuary. The Guardian described this work as 'drawing together the romantic landscape of the poets with the tensions of contemporary Cumbria'. [1]
Thompson's third book again depicts the difficulties inherent in modern village life, as viewed by a scarred and unorthodox loner named Samson Ashburner.
This 64-page illustrated book tells the story of Mary, the daughter of a fisherman who has been killed at sea. Mary must go on a perilous journey to a secret valley below the waves, in order to save her hometown from being swallowed by the ocean. The graphics in the book were created by Totnes artist Hannah Megee. The Sea Swallow was written as part of a Mythic Coastline project, designed to draw visitors back to the Lancashire coast and connect communities. This will be further achieved through dramatic performances and major public art works.
The Remains of the Day is a 1989 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author Kazuo Ishiguro. The protagonist, Stevens, is a butler with a long record of service at Darlington Hall, a stately home near Oxford, England. In 1956, he takes a road trip to visit a former colleague, and reminisces about events at Darlington Hall in the 1920s and 1930s.
Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, is a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She is the widow of the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Harold Pinter (1930–2008), and prior to his death was also known as Lady Antonia Pinter.
Nicholas Peter John Hornby is an English writer and lyricist. He is best known for his memoir Fever Pitch (1992) and novels High Fidelity and About a Boy, all of which were adapted into feature films. Hornby's work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists. His books have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. In a 2004 poll for the BBC, Hornby was named the 29th most influential person in British culture. He has received two Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nominations for An Education (2009), and Brooklyn (2015).
Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. The entire series remains in print, and Swallows and Amazons is the basis for a tourist industry around Windermere and Coniston Water, the two lakes Ransome adapted as his fictional North Country lake.
David John Lodge CBE is an English author and critic. A literature professor at the University of Birmingham until 1987, some of his novels satirise academic life, notably the "Campus Trilogy" – Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) and Nice Work (1988). The second two were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Another theme is Roman Catholicism, beginning from his first published novel The Picturegoers (1960). Lodge has also written television screenplays and three stage plays. After retiring, he continued to publish literary criticism. His edition of Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (1972) includes essays on 20th-century writers such as T. S. Eliot. In 1992, he published The Art of Fiction, a collection of essays on literary techniques with illustrative examples from great authors, such as Point of View, The Stream of Consciousness and Interior Monologue, beginning with Beginning and ending with Ending.
Nice Work is a 1988 novel by British author David Lodge. It is the final volume of Lodge's "Campus Trilogy", after Changing Places (1975) and Small World: An Academic Romance (1984). Nice Work won the Sunday Express Book of the Year award in 1988 and was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
The Swallows and Amazons series is a series of twelve children's adventure novels by English author Arthur Ransome. Set in the interwar period, the novels involve group adventures by children, mainly in the school holidays and mainly in England. They revolve around outdoor activities, especially sailing. Literary critic Peter Hunt believes it "changed British literature, affected a whole generation's view of holidays, helped to create the national image of the English Lake District and added Arthur Ransome's name to the select list of classic British children's authors." The series remains popular and inspires visits to the Lake District and Norfolk Broads, where many of the books are set.
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg,, is an English broadcaster, author and parliamentarian. He is the editor and presenter of The South Bank Show, and made the BBC Radio 4 documentary series In Our Time.
Conrad Michael Richter was an American novelist whose lyrical work is concerned largely with life on the American frontier in various periods. His novel The Town (1950), the last story of his trilogy The Awakening Land about the Ohio frontier, won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His novel The Waters of Kronos won the 1961 National Book Award for Fiction. Two collections of short stories were published posthumously during the 20th century, and several of his novels have been reissued during the 21st century by academic presses.
Harry William Thompson was an English radio and television producer, comedy writer, novelist and biographer. He was the creator of the dark humour television series Monkey Dust, screened between 2003 and 2005.
John McGahern was an Irish writer and novelist. He is regarded as one of the most important writers of the latter half of the twentieth century.
Richard Bruce Wright was a Canadian novelist. He was known for his break-through 2001 novel Clara Callan, which won three major literary awards in Canada: The Giller Prize, the Trillium Book Award, and the Governor General's Award.
Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet.
Andrew O'Hagan is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
Saint Bega was reputedly a saint of the Early Middle Ages; an Irish princess who became an anchoress and valued her virginity. Promised in marriage to a Viking prince who, according to a medieval manuscript The Life of St Bega, was "son of the king of Norway", Bega "fled across the Irish sea to land at St. Bees on the Cumbrian coast. There she settled for a time, leading a life of exemplary piety, then, fearing the raids of pirates which were starting along the coast, she moved over to Northumbria". The most likely time for this would have been after AD 850, when the Vikings were settling in Ireland.
Nathan Lee Powell is an American graphic novelist and musician. His 2008 graphic novel Swallow Me Whole won an Ignatz Award and Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel. He illustrated the March trilogy, an autobiographical series written by U.S. Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, which received the 2016 National Book Award, making Powell the first cartoonist to receive the award.
Berlie Doherty is an English novelist, poet, playwright and screenwriter. She is best known for children's books, for which she has twice won the Carnegie Medal. She has also written novels for adults, plays for theatre and radio, television series and libretti for children's opera.
Lola Shoneyin is a Nigerian poet and author who launched her debut novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, in the UK in May 2010. Shoneyin has forged a reputation as an adventurous, humorous and outspoken poet, having published three volumes of poetry. Her writing delves into themes related to female sexuality and the difficulties of domestic life in Africa. In April 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature. Lola won the PEN Award in America as well as the Ken Saro-Wiwa Award for prose in Nigeria. She was also on the list for the Orange Prize in the UK for her debut novel, The Secret of Baba Segi's Wives, in 2010. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria, where she runs the annual Aké Arts and Book Festival. In 2017, she was named African Literary Person of the Year by Brittle Paper.
Ruta Sepetys is a Lithuanian-American writer of historical fiction. As an author, she is a New York Times and international bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal and The Josette Frank Award for Fiction.
Valerie Tagwira is a Zimbabwean writer who is a specialist obstetrician-gynecologist by profession. Her debut novel The Uncertainty of Hope, published in 2006 by Weaver Press, won the 2008 National Arts Merit Awards (NAMA) Outstanding Fiction Book.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/feb/26/teaching.schools2.