Nicola Chester

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Nicola Chester is a British nature writer. She is a regular columnist in The Guardian and in the RSPB's magazine, and has written a memoir On Gallows Down.

Contents

Early life and education

Chester is from a working-class family: her father was a firefighter and her mother an assistant in local government. She applied to an agricultural college to study game and wildlife conservation management, but was told that the course was for gamekeepers and all gamekeepers were men. She spent a year working on a horse ranch in Canada, and then returned to England and studied English literature at King Alfred's College, now the University of Winchester, supporting herself with part-time jobs. [1] She works as a school librarian. [2]

Writing career

Chester won the BBC Wildlife Magazine 's award for nature writing in 2003, and was then offered a column in the RSPB's magazine Nature's Home. [1] She has been one of the writers of The Guardian 's "Country Diary" since 2019. [1]

Her Otters (2014, Bloomsbury: ISBN   978-1472903860) was the first book in the RSPB's Spotlight series. [1]

Her memoir On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging (2021, Chelsea Green: ISBN   978-1645021162) won the 2021 Richard Jefferies Award, [3] was shortlisted for the 2022 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, [4] and was included in BBC Countryfile Magazine's "best nature and countryside books of 2021". [5] It takes its name from Gallows Down, on which Combe Gibbet stands, above her home village of Inkpen in West Berkshire. [1] A reviewer in The Sociological Review describes it as "an autobiographical account of how a white working-class woman has, at times, struggled to maintain a sense of belonging and acceptance in rural England" and says that as well as being part of the genre of "new nature writing" it is also "about gender and social class in the English countryside". [6]

In 2024 she was appointed as one of the judges of the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize. [7]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Moses, Jonathan (18 November 2022). "'All this on our doorstep': conservation and resistance on Gallows Down". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
  2. ↑ "Nicola Chester". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
  3. ↑ "2021 - On Gallows Down - Nicola Chester". Richard Jefferies Award. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
  4. ↑ "Nature Writing: Shortlist 2022: On Gallows Down". Wainwright Prize. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
  5. ↑ "BBC Countryfile Magazine's best nature and countryside books of 2021". www.countryfile.com. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
  6. ↑ Bennett, Julia (4 April 2023). "On Gallows Down by Nicola Chester". The Sociological Review Magazine. doi: 10.51428/tsr.fhjq3977 . Retrieved 28 May 2024.
  7. ↑ "Madeleine Bunting, Nicola Chester, Lucy Stone and Andy Fryers in conversation". Hay Festival. 2 June 2024. Retrieved 28 May 2024.


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