Katherine Langrish Biography
Katherine Langrish grew up in Yorkshire, England and has
been writing stories for as long as she can remember. She graduated from London
University in 1979 with a First in English, and worked in an assortment of odd
jobs including waitressing, teaching riding, and six years as Information
Officer for Lloyd's Register of Ships in London. This last was an entertaining
post dealing with an assortment of the ship-crazed public, including a man who
claimed he could see shipwrecks with his ‘magic eye.’
Married with two daughters, in 1992 Langrish moved to France with her family
and became involved in a storytelling group providing weekly stories, drama and
activities for children. And the storytelling continued when the family
relocated again, this time to the small town of Corning in New York State.
On returning to England in 1999, she began writing Troll Fell, a
folklore-based fantasy novel for children set in the Viking age. It was sold at
auction to HarperCollins for a six-figure sum and was followed by the sequels,
Troll Mill and Troll Blood. The books follow the fortunes of
young Peer Ulfsson and his friend Hilde in a richly-imagined Scandinavian
world. As Langrish says, ‘I am allergic to heroes with swords, rings and other
magical gadgets, so my characters have to work out their problems by their own
efforts.’ The final book in the series takes the pair across the Atlantic in a
Viking ship to the coasts of ‘Vinland’ (Nova Scotia). As part of her research
she spent ‘one of the best weeks of my life’ learning how to sail a replica
Viking ship on Roskilde fjord, Denmark. Langrish approaches her fantasies as
‘history with the beliefs put back in’ – incorporating the beliefs of people of
the past who took for granted the existence of trolls, ghosts, and other
spirits. Her books have been translated into nine languages.
This biography was last updated on 08/21/2011.
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