- Joanna Briscoe
Joanna Briscoe is a British novelist.
Early life
Joanna Briscoe was born in London. Much of her childhood was spent in the southwest of England.cite episode
title=The House I Grew up In featuring Joanna Briscoe|series=The House I Grew Up In |serieslink = The House I Grew Up In
url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/thehouseigrewupin/pip/cbuab/
network=BBC
station =BBC Radio 4
airdate=2008-08-27 ] At the age of 10 years she moved with her family from Somerset to Jordan Manor, an isolated six-bedroomed thatched Devon long house set within ten acres of land in a valley inDartmoor .cite web
title=Jordan Manor (for sale ad)
url=http://www.struttandparker.co.uk/html2/php/property.php?tab=list&id=EXE080238] She was rather isolated and she occupied her time by reading and with her imagination by writing novels. Her early novels where rejected by publishers, but she was convinced she would be an author.Her parents took her out of a primary school to be home schooled for under a year by an unqualified teacher nearer to home at Tor Farm, another Devon longhouse, when she was 10 years old. Many of the lessons were out-of-doors on the tors. At the age of 13 years she moved onto
King Edward VI Community College , the localsecondary school inTotnes , and in thesixth form she studied English.Career
She attended
University College London and worked for several years as a freelance journalist.Her first novel "Mothers and Other Lovers", in which the teenage Eleanor who tries to escape from a stultifying rural life only to fall in love with her mother's new female friend, won aBetty Trask Award . Briscoe spent a lot of time in New York, researching her second novel "Skin" (runner-up for the Encore Award) which explored the plastic surgery and the psychological tool taken on women by the "beauty industry". Her third novel, the psychological thriller "Sleep With Me" published in July 2005 is, according to author and criticJonathan Coe '… a beautifully written and emotionally candid novel which also happens to be a page-turner'. It has been published in several languages and was shortlisted for the "Prince Maurice Award". Briscoe's short stories have featured in several anthologies. She contributing widely to numerous publications, including "the Guardian ", "the Independent ," "The Observer ", and "the Sunday Times " and broadcast onBBC Radio 4 .Personal life
Joanna Briscoe lives in North London with her partner
Charlotte Mendelson and two children [ [http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,2074414,00.html Guardian interview with Charlotte Mendelson 8 May 2007] ]Novels
*"Mothers and Other Lovers" (1994)
*"Skin" (1997)
*"Sleep With Me" (2005)Awards and nominations
*
Betty Trask Award (1995)
*Encore Award (shortlisted) (1998)References
External links
* [http://www.bloomsbury.com/authors/microsite.asp?id=918§ion=1 Joanna Briscoe at Bloomsbury]
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