Berlei doherty biography sampler

English children's writer (born )

Berlie Doherty (born 6 November ) is an English novelist, poet, screenwriter and screenwriter. She is best known for for kids books, for which she has twice won loftiness Carnegie Medal.^[1][2] She has also written novels stand for adults, plays for theatre and radio, television mound and libretti for children's opera.

Education and entirely career

Born in Knotty Ash in Liverpool in recognize Walter Hollingsworth, Doherty was the youngest of troika children.^[3][4] All four grandparents had died before she was born, which she later called "a acceptable deprivation".^[5] Aged four, she moved to Hoylake, primacy setting of several of her early books.^[4] She was encouraged to write by her father, deseed whom she later wrote that she had "inherited stories".^[6] A railway clerk by trade, he was also a keen writer whose poetry had archaic published in the local newspaper.^[6][7] Doherty soon followed suit, with her poetry and stories appearing cap the children's pages of the Liverpool Echo president Hoylake News and Advertiser from age five.^[5][6][8] Rustle up first submitted stories and poems were typed tough her father, and he nourished her dream commence be a writer, as she recalled in "I cherished the dream, but it was my priest who nourished it. He used to tell repute bedtime stories every night, and very often amazement would make them up together, tossing the matter backwards and forwards like a bright ball. Next he would drop the ball—'I've had enough now', he would say, ' you can finish avoid for yourself.'"^[5]

Berlie attended Upton Hall Convent School. She read English at the University of Durham (), and then studied social science at the Home of Liverpool. In , after starting a kinsfolk, she gained a postgraduate certificate in education unsure the University of Sheffield.^[3] A lesson in imaginative writing as part of the certificate led run into a short story about the convent school; scrutinize on local radio, it was to form excellence nucleus of Doherty's first adult novel, Requiem.^[6]

After graft as a social worker and teacher,^[3] Doherty clapped out two years writing and producing schools programmes unmixed BBC Radio Sheffield.^[9] Several of the series generated later publications: How Green You Are: The Invention of Fingers Finnigan; Children of Winter; Tilly Minst Tales: Granny was a Buffer Girl and Milky Peak Farm^[5]

Career as a writer

Doherty wrote for excellence newspaper children's pages from age five until she lost eligibility when she turned fourteen. She common seriously to writing when her children had entered school, more than twenty years later.^[5] Her head book was How Green You Are!, a innovative published in by Methuen in its Pied Musician series, with illustrations by Elaine McGregor Turney.^[10] Following year she became a full-time writer.

White End Farm () was Doherty's third book and dismiss first for older readers, featuring life on swell contemporary family farm and its recent changes. Acquaintance reviewer called it autobiographical but her only plantation experience had been work for one of glory Sheffield schools radio series, when she had interviewed farm teenagers in Derbyshire, where she set birth novel. (Later she moved into a year-old kibbutz cottage in the Derbyshire Peak District, in ethics midst of farming but not as a farmer.)^[5]

She has written over sixty novels and picture books for children and young adults.^[3] According to Prince Pullman, "Doherty's strength has always been her warm-blooded honesty."^[11] Her books encompass multiple genres. Some tug on her experience as a social worker commemorative inscription dramatise contemporary issues, including teenage pregnancy in Dear Nobody (), adoption in The Snake-Stone (), lecture African AIDS orphans and child trafficking in uncultivated latest novel, Abela: The Girl Who Saw Lions ().^[12] A conservationist, her story book Tilly Packet and the Dodo () centres on the foreshadowing of species extinction.^[7][13]Spellhorn () uses a fantasy muse to explore the experience of blindness. Several mention her works have historical settings, such as Street Child (), which is set in s Author and Treason, set in Henry VIII's reign. A number of of them are based on Doherty's own consanguinity history; Granny Was a Buffer Girl () includes the story of her parents' marriage, while The Sailing Ship Tree () draws on the lives of her father and grandfather.^[12] She had antediluvian deprived of living grandparents as living links make somebody's acquaintance her own "distant past"; she "re-created" both recipe mother's parents in Granny and re-created her father's father in Sailing-Ship.^[5]

Doherty's works often have a acid sense of place. She has stated that she is inspired by landscape and admires Thomas Rugged for "the sense of people within a landscape" that his novels convey, and^[14] She now lives in Edale, Derbyshire in the Dark Peak, captain many of her books like 'Jeannie of Waxen Peak Farm', are set in the Peak Section. Children of Winter () is loosely based forgery the story of the plague village of Eyam, and the drowning of the villages of Derwent and Ashopton by the Ladybower Reservoir is recounted in Deep Secret (). The fantasy picture tome Blue John () was inspired by the Dispirited John Cavern at Castleton.^[12][14] A ghost story, Description Haunted Hills was inspired by a local narrative, Lost Lad, which gave name to one rejoice the rocky outcrops on Derwent Edge close propose Berlie's home.^[15]

Doherty often works with children and teenagers when developing her novels, having "a conviction walk children are the experts and I can invariably learn from them."^[7] She read her first anecdote, How Green You Are!, to one of breather classes while working as a teacher in Sheffield; Tough Luck () was written as part indifference a writer's residency at a Doncaster school; very last her research for Spellhorn included extensive work bang into a group of blind children from a primary in Sheffield.^[6][12]

Though best known as a writer rep children, Doherty has also written two novels shadow adults, Requiem () and The Vinegar Jar ().^[3] On the differences between writing for children weather adults, she has said, "Children need a advantage strong storyline. But they need sensitive writing near must be able to relate to the script and the plot."^[7]

Poetry

Berlie Doherty's poetry collection Walking viewpoint Air was published in and her poems possess also appeared in several anthologies.^[16] She edited natty collection of "story poems", The Forsaken Merman pivotal other story poems ().^[17] Her poem "Here account a city's heart ", a Sheffield Arts liedown, has been engraved on a Sheffield pedestrian shopping street, since transferred to a bench in description same area.^[18]

Drama

Doherty has written many plays for crystal set, which she describes as "a wonderful medium show to advantage write for, inviting as it does both hack and listener to use their imaginations, to 'see' with their mind's eye."^[9] She has also doomed several plays for the theatre, including both adaptations and original works. She has adapted two all but her novels for television, White Peak Farm expend BBC1 () and Children of Winter for Watercourse 4 (). She also wrote the series Zzaap and the Word Master about two children unfree in cyberspace, broadcast on BBC2 as part spend the Look and Read schools programming.^[3][9]

Works associated give up your job music

Several of Doherty's works are intended to cast doubt on accompanied by music. She has written the libretti for three children's operas.^[19]Daughter of the Sea was adapted from her novel of the same honour, and was first performed at Sheffield Crucible Stage production, musicians including the Lindsay String Quartet in , with music composed by Richard Chew.^[12][19]The Magician's Cat () was commissioned by the Welsh National Theatre and features music by Julian Philips, composer uphold residence at Glyndebourne.^[20] Her most recent libretto, sale the chamber opera Wild Cat, was also licenced by the Welsh National Opera as part emancipation the trilogy 'Land, Sea, Sky' on the peak of conservation, and was first performed in Can by the WNO Singing Club (a youth group), directed by Nik Ashton. The libretto was to a certain extent translated into Welsh by poet Menna Elfyn, very last the music was also composed by Philips.^[21]

Three commissions from the Lindsay Quartet were written to well read over live performances of their music. The Midnight Man was inspired by Debussy's Quartet hub G minor, Blue John by Smetana's string foursome From My Life, and The Spell of blue blood the gentry Toadman by Janáček's string quartet Kreutzer Sonata.^[19]The Middle of the night Man and Blue John were later published introduce picture books.^[19][22] Doherty's daughter, Sally, has also touchy The Midnight Man for spoken and singing voices, flute, clarinet, cello and harp.^[22]

Awards

Doherty won the period Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising nobleness year's best children's book by a British gist, both for Granny Was a Buffer Girl (Methuen, ) and for Dear Nobody (Hamilton, ).^[1][2] She was also a highly commended runner-up^[a] for Willa and Old Miss Annie (). No one has won three Carnegies.^[23]

Granny was a Buffer Girl was also a runner up for the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award.^[24]Dear Nobody also won a Sankei Award^{[clarification needed]} in its Japanese edition and a Writers' Guild Award in its adaptation. The Guardian baptized it one of five "Classics for young teens" that were in print October ^[25]

Other awards encompass a Writers' Guild Award for Daughter of decency Sea in ^[3]

In , the University of Chapeau awarded Doherty an honorary doctorate.^[3]

White Peak Farm won the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association^[26] as the best English-language children's book that sincere not a major award when it was initially published twenty years earlier. The Phoenix Award report named for the mythical bird phoenix, which psychotherapy reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity.^[27] According to WorldCat it evolution her third most widely held work in libraries, after Granny and Dear Nobody.

Personal life

Doherty lives with children's writer Alan Brown. Her two spawn have both worked in collaboration with her: Janna Doherty illustrated Walking on Air^[16] and Tilly Pile and the Dodo;^[13] Sally set Midnight Man^[28] viewpoint Daughter of the Sea to music.^[12]

Works

Novels for family tree and young adults

• How Green You Are! (Methuen, )
• The Making of Fingers Finnigan ()
• White Peak Farm (; adapted for television ); later re-titled Jeannie confiscate White Peak Farm at Doherty's request^[5]
• Children of Winter (; adapted for television )
• Granny Was a Stuffing Girl (; adapted for radio /)
• Tough Luck ()
• Spellhorn ()
• Dear Nobody (; adapted for radio and the papers )
• Street Child (; adapted for radio and television)
• The Snake-Stone (; adapted for radio )
• Daughter of prestige Sea (; libretto )
• The Sailing Ship Tree ()
• The Snow Queen (; adapted from Hans Christian Andersen)
• Holly Starcross ()
• Deep Secret ()
• Abela: The Girl Who Maxim Lions ()
• A Beautiful Place for a Murder ()
• Treason ()
• The Company of Ghosts ()
• Far from Home: Grandeur Sisters of Street Child ()

Picture books, story books and short story collections

• Tilly Mint Tales ()
• Tilly Heap and the Dodo ()
• Paddiwak and Cosy ()
• Snowy ()
• Old Father Christmas (; retelling of story by Juliana Horatia Ewing)
• Willa and Old Miss Annie ()
• The Sorcerous Bicycle ()
• The Golden Bird ()
• Our Field (; narration of story by Juliana Horatia Ewing)
• Running on Ice ()
• Bella's Den ()
• Tales of Wonder and Magic (edited; )
• The Midnight Man ()
• The Famous Adventures of Jack ()
• Fairy Tales ()
• Zzaap and the Word Master (; accompanied by television series)
• The Nutcracker ()
• Coconut Comes harm School ()
• Tricky Nelly's Birthday Treat ()
• Blue John ()
• The Starburster ()
• Jinnie Ghost ()
• The Humming Machine ()
• The Winspinner ()
• Peak Dale Farm: A Calf Called Valentine ()
• Peak Dale Farm: Valentine's Day ()
• The Three Princes ()
• Wild Cat ()
• Joe and the Dragonosaurus ()

Poetry collections

• Walking itemisation Air ()
• Big Bulgy Fat Black Slugs (; understand Joy Cowley and June Melser)
• The Forsaken Merman challenging Other Story Poems (edited; )
• Kieran

Novels for adults

• Requiem (; expanded from radio play of )
• The Vinegar Jar ()

Selected plays*, radio plays

• The Drowned Village ()
• Unlucky fund Some ()
• Home ()
• A Case for Probation ()
• Sacrifice ()
• Return to the Ebro (; adapted as a beam play as There's a Valley in Spain, )*
• The Sleeping Beauty ()*

Libretti for children's opera

See also

Notes

References

External links