Scarlett Thomas

Last updated

Scarlett Thomas
Scarlett Thomas, 2006.jpg
Scarlett Thomas, in 2006
Born5 July 1972 (1972-07-05) (age 52)
Hammersmith, London, England
Occupation Novelist
Notable works The End of Mr. Y
PopCo
Our Tragic Universe
Partner Rod Edmond [1]
Website
www.scarthomas.com

Scarlett Thomas (born 5 July [2] 1972 in Hammersmith) is an English author who writes contemporary postmodern fiction. She has published ten novels, including The End of Mr. Y and PopCo , as well as the Worldquake series of children's books, and Monkeys With Typewriters, a book on how to unlock the power of storytelling. She is Professor of Creative Writing & Contemporary Fiction at the University of Kent.

Contents

Biography

Thomas is the daughter of Francesca Ashurst, [3] and attended a variety of schools, including a state junior school in Barking, Hylands School and a boarding school for eighteen months. During her teenage years she was involved in demonstrations against the Poll Tax, nuclear weapons and the first Gulf War. She studied for her A levels at Chelmsford College and achieved a First in a degree in Cultural Studies at the University of East London from 1992 to 1995. [4]

Her first three novels feature Lily Pascale, an English literature lecturer who solves murder mysteries. Her next three novels - Bright Young Things (2001), Going Out (2002), and PopCo (2004) - took her away from genre fiction, and she used them to "explore what it means to be trapped in a culture where your identity is defined by pop culture." [5]

Her next novel, 2006's The End of Mr. Y brought her a new level of success, [6] and was sold in 22 countries. She followed this 4 years later with Our Tragic Universe, originally to be titled Death of the Author. [7] [8] In writing her ninth novel, The Seed Collectors, [9] her research included studying towards an MSc in ethnobotany.

Recently, Thomas started writing children's fiction, publishing Dragon's Green in 2017, the first in the Worldquake series. It was followed by The Chosen Ones in 2018 and Galloglass in 2019. [10] She wrote about her experiences of writing children's fiction, including how much she enjoyed the worldbuilding.

Away from writing fiction, she has taught Creative Writing at the University of Kent since 2004, [9] and has previously taught at Dartmouth Community College, South East Essex College and the University of East London . [11] She reviews books for the Literary Review , the Independent on Sunday , and Scotland on Sunday . She has also served as a member of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (2008) jury, along with Director Iain Softley and presided over by actor Danny Huston [12]

Thomas has stated previously was working on a book called 41-0 [13] about her year of returning to tennis - she had stopped playing when she was 14 but took it up again in 2013 to see "how high [she] could get in the rankings for [her] age." She placed in the Wimbledon Seniors in 2014. She channelled her athletic ability into running and walking, and tracked it via numerous apps, leading to a realisation she had been acting obsessively about her fitness, which she chronicled in The Guardian in 2015 [14] and was followed by, in her words, a breakdown. [15]

She shares with Ariel, the protagonist in The End of Mr. Y, a wish to know everything: [16]

"I'm very much someone who wants to work out the answers. I want to know what's outside the universe, what's at the end of time, and is there a God? But I think fiction's great for that--it's very close to philosophy."

Recognition

In 2001 Thomas was named by The Independent as one of 20 Best Young Writers. [17] In 2002 she won Best New Writer in the Elle Style Awards, and also featured as an author in New Puritans, a project led by the novelists Matt Thorne and Nicholas Blincoe consisting of both a manifesto and an anthology of short stories. [17]

Works

Novels

Children's Fiction

Short stories

Non-fiction

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Fielding</span> English novelist and screenwriter

Helen Fielding is a British journalist, novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of the fictional character Bridget Jones. Fielding’s first novel was set in a refugee camp in East Africa and she started writing Bridget Jones in an anonymous column in London’s Independent newspaper. This turned into an unexpected hit, leading to four Bridget Jones novels and three movies, with a fourth movie announced in April 2024 for release in 2025.

Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld is an American writer. She is the author of a collection of short stories, You Think it, I’ll Say It (2018), as well as seven novels: Prep (2005), the story of students at a Massachusetts prep school; The Man of My Dreams (2006), a coming-of-age novel and an examination of romantic love; American Wife (2008), a fictional story loosely based on the life of First Lady Laura Bush; Sisterland (2013), which tells the story of identical twins with psychic powers; Eligible (2016), a modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice; Rodham (2020), an alternate history political novel about the life of Hillary Clinton; and Romantic Comedy (2023), a romance between a comedy writer and a pop star.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stacey Kent</span> American jazz singer

Stacey Kent is an American jazz singer from South Orange, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lionel Shriver</span> American author (born 1957)

Lionel Shriver is an American author and journalist who lives in Portugal. Her novel We Need to Talk About Kevin won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005.

<i>PopCo</i> Book by Scarlett Thomas

PopCo is a 2004 novel by British author Scarlett Thomas. The book addresses several mathematical topics.

Naomi Alderman is an English novelist, game writer, and television executive producer. She is best known for her speculative science fiction novel The Power, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2017 and has been adapted into a television series for Amazon Studios.

<i>Bloodtide</i> (novel) 1999 novel by Melvin Burgess

Bloodtide is a youth-fiction novel by Melvin Burgess, first published by Andersen Press Limited in 1999. It is based upon the first part of the Icelandic "Volsunga Saga". It received positive reviews from The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly, and was followed in 2007 by a sequel, Bloodsong.

Rachel Cusk is a British novelist and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maggie O'Farrell</span> Irish-British novelist (born 1972)

Maggie O'Farrell, RSL, is a novelist from Northern Ireland. Her acclaimed first novel, After You'd Gone, won the Betty Trask Award, and a later one, The Hand That First Held Mine, the 2010 Costa Novel Award. She has twice been shortlisted since for the Costa Novel Award for Instructions for a Heatwave in 2014 and This Must Be The Place in 2017. She appeared in the Waterstones 25 Authors for the Future. Her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death reached the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list. Her novel Hamnet won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020, and the fiction prize at the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Awards. The Marriage Portrait was shortlisted for the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yiyun Li</span> Chinese writer and professor

Yiyun Li is a Chinese-born writer and professor in the United States. Her short stories and novels have won several awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End, and the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Book of Goose. Her short story collection Wednesday's Child was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is an editor of the Brooklyn-based literary magazine A Public Space.

Lucy Ellmann is an American-born British novelist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony McGowan</span> English author

Anthony John McGowan is an English author of books for children, teenagers and adults. He is the winner of the 2020 CILIP Carnegie Medal for Lark.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ewan Morrison</span> Scottish author and screenwriter

Ewan Morrison is a Scottish author, cultural critic, director, and screenwriter. He has published eight novels and a collection of short stories, as of 2021. His novel Nina X won the Saltire Society Literary Award for Fiction Book of the Year 2019. Literary critic Stuart Kelly described Morrison as "the most fluent and intelligent writer of his generation here in Scotland".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Lockwood</span> American poet and author (born 1982)

Patricia Lockwood is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Her 2021 debut novel, No One Is Talking About This, won the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her 2017 memoir Priestdaddy won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Her poetry collections include Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, a 2014 New York Times Notable Book. Since 2019, she has been a contributing editor for London Review of Books.

<i>Hag-Seed</i> 2016 novel by Margaret Atwood

Hag-Seed is a novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, published in October 2016. A modern retelling of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, the novel was commissioned by Random House as part of its Hogarth Shakespeare series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Oseman</span> English author (born 1994)

Alice May Oseman is an English author of young adult fiction. She secured her first publishing deal at 17 and published her first novel Solitaire in 2014. Her novels include Radio Silence, I Was Born for This, and Loveless. She wrote and illustrated the webcomic Heartstopper, which has been published as multiple graphic novels and which she adapted into a TV series, earning her a BAFTA TV Award nomination and two Children's and Family Emmy Awards as both a writer and producer. Her novels focus on contemporary teenage life in the UK and have received the Inky Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayobami Adebayo</span> Nigerian writer (born 1988)

Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ is a Nigerian writer. Her 2017 debut novel, Stay With Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature and the Prix Les Afriques. She was awarded The Future Awards Africa Prize for Arts and Culture in 2017.

Hermione Hoby is a British author, journalist, and cultural critic. She is the author of the novels Neon in Daylight and Virtue.

Sara Nović is an American writer, translator, and creative writing professor. Nović is also a deaf rights' activist who has written about the challenges she has faced as a deaf novelist.

<i>Girl, Woman, Other</i> 2018 novel by Bernardine Evaristo

Girl, Woman, Other is the eighth novel by Bernardine Evaristo. Published in 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, it follows the lives of 12 characters in the United Kingdom over the course of several decades. The book was the co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments.

References

  1. "Rod Edmond". Bridget Williams Books. Retrieved 23 November 2014.
  2. @scarthomas (4 July 2017). "My mother reminding me that my family is not at all competitive" (Tweet) via Twitter.
  3. Acknowledgments for The End of Mr. Y
  4. Archived biography and interview from official website
  5. Bookbrowse Biography
  6. Miller, Laura (10 September 2015). "Sometimes a Gifted Novelist Gets One Big Swing at Success—and Whiffs". Slate.
  7. When pop goes postmodern: Scarlett Thomas (LA Times)
  8. Amazon UK - Scarlett Thomas 'Our Tragic Universe'
  9. 1 2 About Scarlett Thomas
  10. Worldquake Series. Simon and Schuster. 2017.
  11. Scarlett Thomas - School of English
  12. Edinburgh Winners - Eurostar's Somers Town, Man on a Wire, Herzog's Encounters at End of the World
  13. Love match: how I finally got to play at Wimbledon
  14. Thomas, Scarlett (7 March 2015). "Nowhere to run: did my fitness addiction make me ill?". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  15. Thomas, Scarlett (24 March 2017). "Scarlett Thomas: Why I was wrong about children's fiction". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 24 December 2017.
  16. Bookseller Interview Archived 2009-01-07 at the Wayback Machine
  17. 1 2 Tales of Scarlett woman (Edinburgh Evening News)
  18. Berry, Flynn (6 April 2024). "When a Couple's Paradise Honeymoon Became a Gothic Mystery". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 13 July 2024.
  19. Kent, Christobel (6 April 2024). "The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas review – fiendishly gripping". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 13 July 2024.
  20. Mulberry Street blog about Five Easy Ways with Chilli Archived 2011-08-18 at the Wayback Machine