Linda Newbery: Difference between revisions

Linda Iris Newbery (born 12 August 1952) is a British writer known best for young-adult fiction—where she entered the market, although she has broadened her range to encompass all ages. She published her first novel Run with the Hare in 1988, while still working as an English teacher in a comprehensive school.

Linda is a regular tutor for the Arvon Foundation and is a member of the Society of Authors and the Scattered Authors' Society.

Background

Linda Newbery was born in Romford, Essex, spent most of her childhood in Epping, and attended a grammar school in nearby Loughton. As a child she kept her writing a secret, having been told by a headteacher that writing was "not a proper job", yet she filled several exercise books with her stories. As a young adult, she also experimented with writing poetry. She taught English in secondary schools while working on her novels, becoming a full-time writer in 2000.

Writing

Linda Newbery is best known for young-adult fiction including several historical novels. Set in Stone is a Gothic mystery in the tradition of Wilkie Collins and the Victorian sensation novel. Set in an Arts & Crafts house on the South Downs, it features the disappearance of one of four stone-carvings, the West Wind, and the secrets hidden beneath the house's immaculate surfaces. The Shell House links two stories, one set in the present and one during World War I, both featuring a now-ruined house in Epping Forest (based on Copped Hall). Greg, in the present-day story, is horrified to find himself strongly attracted to another boy. In the past, Edmund Pearson, son of the wealthy Pearson family, is looked upon to supply a son and heir, but is secretly in love with another officer, Alex. The two stories are also linked through questions of faith, belief and doubt.

Sisterland also links past and present through the story of Sarah Reubens, a Kindertransport refugee to Northampton, who conceals her Jewish identity. In the present-day story, her granddaughter Hilly slowly realises the truth about "Heidigran's" past, and its implications for her own identity.

Before these novels were published, Linda Newbery wrote two linked trilogies, beginning in 1914 with Some Other War, about twins Jack and Alice who live in a quiet Essex village. On the outbreak of war, Jack joins the Epping Foresters Regiment (a fictional version of the Essex Regiment which Newbery used again in The Shell House) and Alice becomes a V.A.D. nurse. The Kind Ghosts follows the twins to the 1918 and Armistice, and a third book, The Wearing of the Green fits alongside, picking up a minor character in the twins' story, Patrick Leary, and following his story through the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. We move on a generation for the Shouting Wind trilogy, which begins with Kay, Patrick and Alice's daughter, who becomes a WAAF in World War II; The Cliff Path follows her hippie daughter Abigail; and A Fear of Heights completes this second trilogy with the life of Abigail's own daughter Tamsin, an engineering student in the 1980s.

Although known best for young-adult novels, Newbery also writes for younger readers. Her novels for children of ages about 10 and up include At the Firefly Gate, Lost Boy, Catcall and Nevermore, all published by Orion. For Usborne Publishing she has written Polly's March and Andie's Moon, part of the Historical House series for which she collaborated with Adele Geras and Ann Turnbull. She has also published a number of short stories and poems.

Newbery has reached the Carnegie Medal shortlist for The Shell House (2002) and Sisterland (2003); several others of her novels have been nominated. The Shell House also made the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize shortlist. She won the Children's Book of the Year prize at the Costa Book Awards for 2006 with her young-adult novel Set in Stone, and Catcall was silver medalist for the last Nestlé Children's Book Prize in 2007, reader ages 9–11 years. The International Board on Books for Young People named The Sandfather to its Honour list in 2010.

Linda Newbery's books for young children have been illustrated by several fine artists including Greenaway Medalist Catherine Rayner (Posy, a 2008 picture book) and Pam Smy, a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University (Lob, a 2010 novel).

She was a judge for the Whitbread Awards in 2005 and for the Guardian Prize in 2007, and she has reviewed fiction for the Times Educational Supplement, The Guardian and other publications.

External links

• Official website
• Linda Newbery at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Linda Newbery at Library of Congress Authorities — with 12 catalogue records, earliest 2004