- Marie Phillips
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Marie Phillips Born 22 April 1976
London, United KingdomOccupation Novelist Nationality British Education BA (Hons), MA Alma mater Robinson College, University of Cambridge Genres Humour, fantasy Notable work(s) Gods Behaving Badly
mariephillips.co.ukMarie Phillips (born 22 April 1976)[1] is a British writer. Her novel Gods Behaving Badly, a comic fantasy concerning ancient Greek gods living in modern-day Hampstead, was first published in the United Kingdom in 2007, later becoming a bestseller in Canada.
She is the daughter of Nicholas Phillips, Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers.
Contents
Life and career
Phillips was born in London and educated at Bryanston School and Cambridge, where she read social anthropology.[2] After university, she worked as a researcher in television documentaries and current affairs,[3] interrupting this career for a year to complete an MA in visual anthropology at the University of Manchester.[4] In 2003 she quit television completely to pursue a career as a writer. Phillips's first novel, The Talentless Miss Pigeon, was turned down by publishers.[2] She worked in bookshops while writing her second novel, Gods Behaving Badly. On the advice of a representative from Random House, Phillips submitted the second work to Dan Franklin, the publishing director of Jonathan Cape, who purchased the UK and Commonwealth rights.
Phillips left bookselling in 2007 to concentrate on writing. She also has a regular personal blog on blogspot.com, which often includes reviews of literature, theatre, and film, as well as current television and radio. She was a writer-in-residence for the charity First Story at Harris Academy Bermondsey 2009–10, and currently at Ackland Burghley School in London.[5]
With Robert Hudson (novelist) she wrote Warhorses of Letters, a 2011 BBC Radio 4 comedy series about the horses of Napoleon and Wellington starring Stephen Fry, Daniel Rigby and Tamsin Greig [6]. The book of the series is being crowd-funded through the Unbound platform. [7]
Gods Behaving Badly
Phillips conceived the idea for Gods Behaving Badly while listening to a philosophy teacher's comparison between the Christian God and those of the ancient world:
He was saying that the gods of the ancient world had flaws, they were more human, and I suddenly thought, what if they were right? There is something arbitrary about belief; if you are a Christian, then you have to believe that the Hindus are wrong, and the other way round. You can back your beliefs up with archaeology or sacred texts, but ultimately it comes down to siding with one team or another. And I thought – what about the Greeks? No one sides with that team any more, but what if they were the ones who got it right? So here's this group of gods, imagine if they were still around...[2]
She drew further inspiration for the novel's plot from the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.[8]
Gods Behaving Badly is Phillips's first published novel. It was released in the UK to largely positive reviews,[9][10][11][12][13] and has been sold to over 12 countries.[14] including Canada, where it reached #1 in the top-selling fiction list.[15] It was originally optioned for television by Ben Stiller's Red Hour Productions,[3] and is currently being made into a film by Big Beach Films.
Notes
- ^ "Marie Phillips". Waterstones.com. Waterstone's. http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/navigate.do?pPageID=200000381. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
- ^ a b c Calkin, Jessamy (31 Jul 2007). "Divine comedy". Telegraph (Telegraph Media Group). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3666721/Divine-comedy.html. Retrieved 2009-02-02.
- ^ a b Wagner, Vit (8 February 2008). "Greek mythology uncensored in Gods Behaving Badly". TheStar.com (Toronto Star). http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/301509. Retrieved 2009-02-02.
- ^ "Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips". Random House – Readers' Group. The Random House Group. http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/readersgroup/printguide.htm?command=Search&db=/catalog/main.txt&eqisbndata=0224081314. Retrieved 2009-02-14.
- ^ http://www.firststory.org.uk/2010/04/22/marie-phillips/
- ^ http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/njtwp/warhorses-of-letters-warhorses-of-letters
- ^ http://www.unbound.co.uk/books/warhorses-of-letters
- ^ Marie Phillips (May 2007) (flv). Gods Behaving Badly/Marie Phillips (YouTube channel). The Random House Group. Event occurs at 2:30. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h5RuEbS2_w. Retrieved 14 February 2009.
- ^ Urquhart, James (4 August 2007). "Gods Behaving Badly". FT.com (The Financial Times). http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f00ab576-3fc5-11dc-b034-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
- ^ Gee, Lisa (20 July 2007). "Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips". The Independent (Independent News & Media). http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/gods-behaving-badly-by-marie-phillips-457892.html. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
- ^ Taylor, Catherine (4 August 2007). "Three sisters". The Guardian (Guardian News and Media). http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/aug/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview14. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
- ^ Segal, Francesca (29 July 2007). "Ye gods! Zeus in Hampstead". The Observer (Guardian News and Media). http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jul/29/features.review. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
- ^ Hughes, Bettany (21 July 2007). "Gods Behaving Badly". The Times (Times Newspapers). http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article2108817.ece. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
- ^ Helm, Richard (1 March 2008). "Gods smile on first-timer's Greek myths". Edmonton Journal (Canwest Publishing). http://www.mariephillips.co.uk/. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
- ^ Bethune, Brian (11 April 2008). "Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of April 11)". Macleans.ca. http://www.macleans.ca/culture/media/article.jsp?content=20080411_104255_8060. Retrieved 2009-02-10.
External links
- Warhorses of Letters book
- Official website
- Marie Phillips at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Categories:- 1976 births
- Alumni of Robinson College, Cambridge
- Living people
- English fantasy writers
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