David Almond Biography
David Almond, in his own words:
I was born in Newcastle and I grew up in a big Catholic family in
Felling-on-Tyne. I had four sisters and a brother and lots of relatives in the
streets nearby. My dad had been in Burma during the war. He and my mum married
in the late 40s. Dad became an office manager in an engineering factory. Mum was
a shorthand typist until she had the children. We moved several times when I was
a child, but always within Felling.
Felling had been a coal mining town, but by the time I remember anything the
pits were all closed. The river at the foot of the town was lined with
warehouses and shipyards. At the summit was a wild area we called the Heather
Hills. I loved playing football in the fields above the town, camping out with
my friends, messing about with my grandfather in his allotment. I was an altar
boy, and I still know snatches of the Latin mass by heart. I loved our local
library, and dreamed of seeing my books on its shelves one day. Favourite books
as a child/teenager included the tales of King Arthur and his knights, the books
of T. Lobsang Rampa, and Hemingway's stories. I also used to read my sisters'
Enid Blytons. I always knew that I wanted to be a writer. One of my uncles had a
small printing works. My mum said that she used to take me there as a baby and I
used to laugh and point at the printed pages coming off the rollers - so maybe I
began to fall in love with print when I was just a few months old.
I went to primary schools in Felling and Sunderland - both of which I liked. I
went to grammar school in Hebburn - which I disliked. To the surprise of some
people (e.g. a few teachers and especially my headmaster) I went on to the
University of East Anglia and did a degree in English and American Literature.
After stints as a hotel porter, postman and labourer, I trained to be a teacher.
It seemed the perfect job for a writer: short hours, long holidays, what more
could I want? How wrong I was. I wasn't just exhausted by it, I also found it
fascinating, and I learned a huge amount. I worked five years in a primary
school on a large estate in Gateshead.
While I was there, my first short stories began to be published in little
magazines. I needed more time to write, so I resigned and sold my house. I went
to live in a commune based in a dilapidated mansion in a beautiful part of
Norfolk. I lived for a year and a half on a few hundred pounds and wrote my
first decent stories there. When my money ran out, I found a job writing
booklets for an adult literacy scheme. This led to my final teaching job, in a
school for children with learning difficulties.
My first book for young people, Skellig, was published in 1998. Before that,
many short stories had appeared in magazines and anthologies, and were broadcast
on Radio 4. Two collections of my stories for adults, Sleepless Nights (1985)
and A Kind of Heaven (1997), were put out by IRON Press, a small North Eastern
publisher. I was editor of the fiction magazine Panurge from 1987-93. I wrote
a novel called Seances that took five years to write and was rejected by every
publisher in the country. Then Skellig came along. It seemed to come out of the
blue, as if it had been waiting a long time to be told. At times seemed to write
itself. Since Skellig, I've written several more children's novels: Kit's
Wilderness, Heaven Eyes, Secret Heart, The Fire-Eaters, and Clay; and a
collection of stories based on my childhood, Counting Stars. My first picture
book, Kate, the Cat and the Moon, illustrated by the wonderful Stephen Lambert,
came out in 2004. I also write for the theatre. My first children's play, Wild
Girl, Wild Boy toured the UK in 2001. My stage adaptation of Skellig was
produced at The Young Vic in 2003, alongside my play for younger children, My
Dad's a Birdman. Heaven Eyes was premiered at The Edinburgh Fringe in 2005.
I live with my family in Northumberland. We live just beyond the Roman Wall,
which for centuries marked the place where civilisation ended and the waste
lands began.
From http://www.davidalmond.com/
About the author:
David Almond is twice the winner of the Whitbread Children's Book Award. His first novel, Skellig, won the Whitbread Children's Award and the Carnegie Medal. His second, Kit's Wilderness, won the Smarties Award Silver Medal, was Highly Commended for the Carnegie Medal, and shortlisted for the Guardian Award. The Fire-Eaters won the Whitbread, the Smarties Gold Award and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. His novel, Clay, was shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book award and the Carnegie Medal.
In March 2010 he was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award - awarded every other year by IBBY (The International Board on Books for Young People) to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children's literature.
In September 2009 he published
Raven Summer and in October 2011 he published
My Name is Mina, a prequel to
Skellig, that has been shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2011.
This biography was last updated on 10/18/2011.
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