Jill Dawson is one of Britain's most talented contemporary writers. She was born in Durham and grew up in Staffordshire, Essex and Yorkshire. She read American Studies at the University of Nottingham, then took a series of short-term jobs in London before studying for an MA in Writing at Sheffield Hallam University. In 1997 she was the British Council Writing Fellow at Amherst College, Massachussets.
Her writing life began as a poet, her poems being published in a variety of small press magazines, and in one pamphlet collection, White Fish with Painted Nails (1990). She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1992.
She edited several books for Virago, including The Virago Book of Wicked Verse (1992) and The Virago Book of Love Letters (1994). She has also edited a collection of short stories, School Tales: Stories by Young Women (1990), and with co-editor Margo Daly, Wild Ways: New Stories about Women on the Road (1998) and Gas and Air: Tales of Pregnancy and Birth (2002). She is the author of one book of non-fiction for teenagers, How Do I Look? (1991), which deals with the subject of self-esteem.
Jill Dawson is the author of five novels: Trick of the Light (1996); Magpie (1998), for which she won a London Arts Board New Writers Award; Fred and Edie (2000); Wild Boy (2003); and most recently, Watch Me Disappear (2006). Fred and Edie is based on the historic murder trial of Thompson and Bywaters, and was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Novel Award and the 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction.
She has taught creative writing on a freelance basis since 1988, both nationally and internationally, and currently she is an Advisory Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund and the Founding Director of ‘Gold Dust’, a unique mentoring scheme for new writers in the UK.s9 by TV's Richard and Judy Book Club.
She will be reading from her latest novel, The Great Lover and will be followed by a Q and A session.
When Tuesday 1 FebruaryShe will also conduct a creative writing workshop on Monday 31 January at the British Council.
Jill Dawson is one of three British Council sponsored UK writers for the Galle Literary Festival 2011.The United Kingdom’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities.
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