Linda Olsson (born 1948) is a Swedish-born novelist who lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Published in 2005, her first novel Let me sing you gentle songs, an international best seller, has been translated into 15 languages. She writes in both English and Swedish. [1] [2]
Born in Stockholm in 1948, Olsson was raised there by working-class parents. After graduating in law from the University of Stockholm, she worked in banking and finance, married and gave birth to three sons. [3] In 1986, the family left Sweden for Kenya where Olsson initially intended to take up a post, but they travelled on to Singapore, Britain and Japan, finally settling in New Zealand in 1990. She continued her studies at the University of Wellington, graduating in English and German literature. [4]
Olsson had first followed a course in creative writing in London which encouraged her to write short stories. After arriving in New Zealand, she won a short story competition run by the Sunday Star Times in 2003. [5] She is a graduate of the Master of Creative Writing programme at the University of Auckland, studying with Witi Ihimaera. [6]
In 2005 she completed her first novel Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs (later reprinted as Astrid and Veronika in 2007) which was published in 25 countries. In Sweden, it became a winning best seller. Her subsequent novels: Sonata for Miriam (2009), The Kindness of Your Nature (2011), and The Blackbird Sings at Dusk (2016) have also been international successes. She completed her fifth novel, A Sister in My House, in April 2016. [7]
Under the pen name Adam Sarafis, she has also collaborated with Thomas Sainsbury on the thriller Something is Rotten (2015). [7]
Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren was a Swedish writer of fiction and screenplays. She is best known for several children's book series, featuring Pippi Longstocking, Emil of Lönneberga, Karlsson-on-the-Roof, and the Six Bullerby Children, and for the children's fantasy novels Mio, My Son; Ronia the Robber's Daughter; and The Brothers Lionheart. Lindgren worked on the Children's Literature Editorial Board at the Rabén & Sjögren publishing house in Stockholm and wrote more than 30 books for children. In 2017, she was calculated to be the world's 18th most translated author. Lindgren had by 2010 sold roughly 167 million books worldwide. In 1994, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "her unique authorship dedicated to the rights of children and respect for their individuality." Her opposition to corporal punishment of children resulted in the world's first law on the matter in 1979, while her campaigning for animal welfare led to a new law, Lex Lindgren, in time for her 80th birthday.
Pippi Longstocking is the fictional main character in an eponymous series of children's books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. Pippi was named by Lindgren's daughter Karin, who asked her mother for a get-well story when she was off school.
Nicolette Larson was an American singer. She is perhaps best known for her work in the late 1970s with Neil Young and her 1978 hit single of Young's "Lotta Love", which hit No. 1 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and No. 8 on the pop singles chart. It was followed by four more adult contemporary hits, two of which were also minor pop hits.
Kate McGarrigle and Anna McGarrigle were a duo of Canadian singer-songwriters from Quebec, who performed until Kate McGarrigle's death on January 18, 2010.
Patricia Frances Grace is a New Zealand Māori writer of novels, short stories, and children's books. She began writing as a young adult, while working as a teacher. Her early short stories were published in magazines, leading to her becoming the first female Māori writer to publish a collection of short stories, Waiariki, in 1975. Her first novel, Mutuwhenua: The Moon Sleeps, followed in 1978.
Miriam Toews is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including A Complicated Kindness (2004), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), and Women Talking (2018). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for her body of work. Toews is also a three-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
Linda Martin is an Irish singer and television presenter. She is best known as the winner of the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest during which she represented Ireland with the song "Why Me?". She is also known within Ireland as a member of the band Chips.
Miriam Webster is an Australian Pentecostal worship leader and contemporary singer/songwriter. She is most well known for her classical worship songs with Hillsong Music Australia. Miriam won A.C.E State Student music award as a teenager for singing at the convention in Queensland, Australia. While staying in Sydney in 1996 she joined her friend who attended Hills Christian Life Centre which is known today as Hillsong Church to go to a Friday night youth service. Miriam was asked to sing this night as they were looking for an item so she sang a song she had penned years before called 'Fall upon your knees'. She joined the worship team months later and from there she has led worship in services, rallies, connect groups and conferences. She has toured Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the United States, and recently released her solo album Made Me Glad.
"You're No Good" is a song written by Clint Ballard Jr., first performed by Dee Dee Warwick for Jubilee Records in 1963 with production by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It has since been covered by many artists, including charting versions by Betty Everett in 1963, The Swinging Blue Jeans in 1964, and Linda Ronstadt in 1974, whose version was a number 1 hit in the United States.
Gale Zoë Garnett is a New Zealand–born Canadian singer best known in the United States for her self-penned, Grammy-winning folk hit "We'll Sing in the Sunshine". Garnett has since carved out a career as an author and actress.
Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and adolescents. She is best known for Miracle's Boys, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. After serving as the Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, by the Library of Congress, for 2018 to 2019. Her novel Another Brooklyn was shortlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. She won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2018. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
Lauren Kate is an American author of adult and young adult fiction. Thus far she's published thirteen novels and one novella. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages, have sold more than eleven million copies worldwide, and have spent combined months on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Charles David Wendig is an American author, comic book writer, screenwriter, and blogger. He is best known for his online blog Terribleminds, for his 2015 Star Wars novel trilogy Aftermath, the first book of which debuted at No. 4 on The New York Times Best Seller list and No. 4 on USA Today's best seller list, for which series he created the characters of Gallius Rax and marshal Cobb Vanth, the latter of whom would subsequently appear in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. Wendig has additionally written comics for Dark Circle Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, Marvel Comics, and VS Comics.
Shonagh Maureen Koea is a New Zealand fiction writer.
Peta Christine Mathias is a New Zealand food writer and television show presenter and owns a television production company that produces food and travel shows. She is also known for leading gastronomic tours in the south of France, Morocco, Spain and India.
Stephanie Dowrick is an Australian writer, Interfaith Minister and social activist. She is the author of more than 20 books of fiction and non-fiction, five of them best-sellers. She was a publisher in Australia and the UK, where she co-founded The Women's Press, London.
Vasanti Unka is a New Zealand writer, illustrator and graphic designer who has been involved in the book and magazine industry for many years. A number of her books have been shortlisted for awards and she won Best Picture Book and Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award at the 2014 New Zealand Post Book Awards with The Boring Book. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Renée Watson is an American teaching artist and author of children's books, best known for her award-winning and New York Times bestselling young adult novel Piecing Me Together, for which she received the John Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Author Award, and Bank Street Children's Book Committee's Josette Frank Award for fiction. Watson founded the nonprofit I, Too, Arts Collective to provide creative arts programs to the Harlem community.
Where the Crawdads Sing is a 2018 coming-of-age murder mystery novel by American zoologist Delia Owens. The story follows two timelines that slowly intertwine. The first timeline describes the life and adventures of a young girl named Kya as she grows up isolated in the marshes of North Carolina. The second timeline follows an investigation into the apparent murder of Chase Andrews, a local celebrity of Barkley Cove, a fictional coastal town of North Carolina.
The Tomten books are two children's books written by Astrid Lindgren. They are based on poems by Viktor Rydberg and Karl-Erik Forsslund.
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