Kate Atkinson | |
---|---|
Born | York, England | 20 December 1951
Occupation | Writer |
Alma mater | University of Dundee |
Genre | Crime fiction |
Children | 2 |
Website | |
www |
Kate Atkinson MBE (born 20 December 1951) is an English writer of novels, plays and short stories. [1] She is known for creating the Jackson Brodie series of detective novels, which has been adapted into the BBC One series Case Histories . [1] [2] She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in 1995 in the Novels category for Behind the Scenes at the Museum , winning again in 2013 and 2015 under its new name the Costa Book Awards. [1]
The daughter of a shopkeeper, Atkinson was born in York, the setting for several of her books. [3] She studied English literature at the University of Dundee, gaining her master's degree in 1974. [1] Atkinson subsequently studied for a doctorate in American literature, with a thesis titled "The post-modern American short story in its historical context". [3] She failed at the viva (oral examination) stage. After leaving the university, she took on a variety of jobs, from home help to legal secretary and teacher. [4]
Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year and went on to be a Sunday Times bestseller. Since then, she has published further novels, as well as plays and short stories. [1] [5] Some of her books are part of a series of novels, starting with Case Histories, which feature the character of Jackson Brodie as a private investigator and former police inspector. [1] Atkinson has criticised the media's coverage of her work – when she won the Whitbread award, for example, it was the fact that she was a "single mother" who lived outside London that received the most attention. [6] In a 2018 interview she declared that she did not spend time in great literary parties or the London high life. [6]
In 2009, she donated the short story "Lucky We Live Now" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Atkinson's story was published in the Earth collection. [7] [8]
In March 2010, Atkinson appeared at the York Literature Festival, giving a world-premier reading from an early chapter from her novel Started Early, Took My Dog (2010), which is set mainly in the English city of Leeds.
Atkinson was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to literature. [9] On 30 November 2018, she was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs . [6]
The first four Jackson Brodie novels have been adapted by other writers for the BBC under the series titled Case Histories , featuring Jason Isaacs as Brodie. [2]
In 2015 in the United States, Shonda Rhimes was in the process of developing a pilot called The Catch , based on a treatment written by Atkinson, and starring Mireille Enos. [14] [15]
Her 2013 novel Life After Life was screened as a BBC drama of the same name in 2022, with Thomasin McKenzie in the role of Ursula. [16]
Atkinson has been married twice: while a student, to the father of her first daughter Eve, and subsequently to the father of her second daughter Helen. [3]
Atkinson lived in Whitby, North Yorkshire, [8] for a time, but now lives in Edinburgh. [5]
Joanne Michèle Sylvie Harris is an English-French author, best known for her 1999 novel Chocolat, which was adapted into a film of the same name.
Jeanette Winterson is an English author.
Andrea Levy was an English author best known for the novels Small Island (2004) and The Long Song (2010). She was born in London to Jamaican parents, and her work explores topics related to British Jamaicans and how they negotiate racial, cultural and national identities.
Helen Dunmore FRSL was a British poet, novelist, and short story and children's writer.
Dame Rose Tremain is an English novelist, short story writer, and former Chancellor of the University of East Anglia.
The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then a brewery and owner of restaurant chains, it was renamed when Costa Coffee, then a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship. The companion Costa Short Story Award was established in 2012. Costa Coffee was purchased by the Coca-Cola Company in 2018. The awards were abruptly terminated in 2022.
Tahmima Anam is a Bangladeshi-born British writer, novelist and columnist. Her first novel, A Golden Age (2007), was the Best First Book winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prizes. Her follow-up novel, The Good Muslim, was nominated for the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize. She is the granddaughter of Abul Mansur Ahmed and daughter of Mahfuz Anam.
Meg Rosoff is an American writer based in London, United Kingdom. She is best known for the novel How I Live Now, which won the Guardian Prize, Printz Award, and Branford Boase Award and made the Whitbread Awards shortlist. Her second novel, Just in Case, won the annual Carnegie Medal from the British librarians recognising the year's best children's book published in the UK.
Jane Mary Gardam is an English writer of children's and adult fiction. She also writes reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and writes for BBC radio. She lives in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She has won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.
Kate Clanchy MBE is a British poet, freelance writer and teacher.
One Good Turn is a 2006 crime novel by Kate Atkinson set in Edinburgh during the Festival. “People queuing for a lunchtime show witness a brutal road rage incident - an incident that changes the lives of everyone involved.” It is the second novel to feature former private investigator Jackson Brodie and is set two years after the earlier Case Histories.
Evelyn Rose Strange "Evie" Wyld is an Anglo-Australian author. Her first novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2009, and her second novel, All the Birds, Singing, won the Encore Award in 2013 and the Miles Franklin Award in 2014. Her third novel, The Bass Rock, won the Stella Prize in 2021.
When Will There Be Good News? is a 2008 crime novel by Kate Atkinson and won the 2009 Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year at the British Book Awards. It is the third to involve retired private detective Jackson Brodie and is set in and around Edinburgh. It begins in Devon where six-year-old Joanna witnesses the brutal murder of her mother, sister and brother and barely escapes with her own life.
Life After Life is a 2013 novel by Kate Atkinson. It is the first of two novels about the Todd family. The second, A God in Ruins, was published in 2015. Life After Life garnered acclaim from critics.
Diana Omo Evans FRSL is a British novelist, journalist and critic who was born and lives in London. Evans has written four full-length novels. Her first novel, 26a, published in 2005, won the Orange Award for New Writers, the Betty Trask Award and the deciBel Writer of the Year award. Her third novel Ordinary People was shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction and won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature. A House for Alice was published in 2023.
Claire Fuller is an English author. She won the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize for her first novel, Our Endless Numbered Days, the BBC Opening Lines Short Story Competition in 2014, and the Royal Academy & Pin Drop Short Story Award in 2016. Her second novel, Swimming Lessons, was shortlisted for the 2018 Royal Society of Literature Encore Award. Bitter Orange, her third, was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award. Her most recent novel, Unsettled Ground, won the Costa Book Awards Novel Award 2021 and was shortlisted for the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction
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 short-listed 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 three novels: Conversations with Friends (2017), Normal People (2018), and Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021). The first two were adapted into the television miniseries Normal People (2020) and Conversations with Friends (2022).
Queenie is a new adult novel written by British author Candice Carty-Williams and published by Trapeze, an imprint of Orion, in 2019. The novel is about the life and loves of Queenie Jenkins, a vibrant, troubled 25-year-old British-Jamaican woman who is not having a very good year. In 2023, Channel 4 announced that Queenie had been made into a television drama, created and executive produced by Carty-Williams and set to air in early 2024.
Library resources about Kate Atkinson (writer) |
By Kate Atkinson (writer) |
---|