Jasper Fforde
Three separate interviews in which Jasper Fforde discusses the Thursday Next series, his Nursery Crime novels and Shades of Grey, the first in a trilogy set in a future world recognizable as our own - but only just.
Abraham Verghese
An interview with Abraham Verghese about his life and writing and in particular about his extraordinary 2009 novel Cutting for Stone, set in 1960s and '70s Ethiopia and 1980s New York.
Martha A Sandweiss
An interview with Martha Sandweiss in which she discusses her book Passing Strange, a biography of Clarence King who lived a double life—as the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a black Pullman porter named James Todd, married to Ada with whom he had five children.
Amy Greene
Amy Greene talks about her first novel, Bloodroot, which brings her native Appalachia—and the faith and fury of its people—to rich and vivid life.
Born in Kenya in 1954, Philippa Gregory moved to England with her family and
was educated in Bristol and at the National Council for the Training of
Journalists course in Cardiff. She worked as a senior reporter on the Portsmouth
News, and as a journalist and producer for BBC radio. Philippa obtained a BA
degree in history at the University of Sussex in Brighton and a PhD at Edinburgh
University in 18th-century literature.
Her first novel, Wideacre, was written as she completed her PhD and
became an instant world-wide bestseller. On its publication, she became a
full-time writer. Her knowledge of gothic eighteenth century novels led to the
world-wide success of Wideacre, which was followed by a haunting sequel:
The Favored Child, and the delightful happy ending of the trilogy:
Meridon. This novel was listed in feminist book fortnight and for the
Romantic Novel of the year at the same time – one of the many instances of
Philippa’s work appealing to very different readers. Touchstone-Fireside
reissued the trilogy in 2003.
In her later novels, Gregory pioneered the genre which has become her own:
fictional biography, the true story of a real person brought to life with
painstaking research and passionate verve. The flowering of this new style was
undoubtedly The Other Boleyn Girl, a runaway best-seller which stormed
the US market and then went worldwide telling the story of the little-known
sister to Anne Boleyn. The Other Boleyn Girl is becoming a classic
historical novel, winning the Parker Pen Novel of the Year award 2002, and the
Romantic Times fictional biography award. The Other Boleyn Girl was
adapted for the BBC as a single television drama and a film is now in production
starring Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn, Scarlett Johansen as Mary Boleyn, and
Eric Bana as Henry.
Other Tudor novels followed The Other Boleyn Girl: The Queen's Fool
taking a sympathetic look at Mary Tudor through the eyes of a real-life
character, a female fool, was a Top Twenty bestseller for twenty weeks in the
UK, and has been bought in the US for a four-part television drama special.
The Virgin's Lover, telling the story of Elizabeth 1st love affair with
Robert Dudley, and the little known story of his wife, was simultaneously in the
Top Twenty bestseller lists in both UK and USA whilst being Number One on the
New Zealand bestseller list. It reached the Top Ten in paperback. Her third
Tudor novel: The Constant Princess, which tells the dramatic life story
of Katherine of Aragon, as a princess raised in the Moorish Palace of the
Alhambra who achieves her life ambition of becoming Queen of England, stayed in
the Top Twenty for thirteen weeks and in the Top Ten for four weeks in the UK.
Two of Gregory’s best-loved novels: Earthly Joys and Virgin Earth
are based on the true-life story of father and son John Tradescant working in
the upheaval of the English civil war.
Her most recent novel, The Boleyn Inheritance (December 2006), will
delight her millions of readers world-wide. It tells the stories of three
extraordinary women: Jane Boleyn, the widow of Anne Boleyn’s brother George,
Anne of Cleves, the young woman who was brought to England by Henry VIII to be
his bride, and then spitefully rejected by him, in favor of Katherine Howard the
girl, almost a child, whom he adored and then killed. As the three women tell
their stories in their own words the paranoid court of the ageing King comes to
life on the page.
Philippa's novel A Respectable Trade took her back to the 18th century
where her knowledge of the slave trade and her home town of Bristol produced a
haunting novel of slave trading and its terrible human cost. This is the only
modern novel to explore the tragedies of slavery in England itself, and features
a group of kidnapped African people trying to find their freedom in the elegant
houses of 18th century Clifton. Gregory adapted her book for a highly acclaimed
BBC television production which won the prize for drama from the Commission of
Racial Equality and was shortlisted for a BAFTA for the screenplay. First
published in the 1990s, Touchstone - Fireside will re-release A Respectable
Trade in the USA in January 2007.
Philippa makes regular contributions to newspapers and magazines, with short
stories, features and reviews. A frequent broadcaster, she is a regular member
on Round Britain Quiz, Quote Unquote, and is the Tudor expert for
television Channel 4's Time Team and presents historical programs for
BBC, most recently an exploration into eighteenth century African slavery in the
North East of England. She was the primary judge for the Whitbread novel of the
Year prize.
In her spare time, Philippa runs an extraordinary charity, founded by her and a
Gambian schoolmaster, Ismaila Sisay. Gardens for The Gambia digs wells for
schools and communities in The Gambia financed by money raised and donated by
Philippa herself. The charity is the biggest well-builder in The Gambia and is
creating market gardens in this, the poorest nation in Africa at the rate of two
a week at present. Philippa and Ismaila have created more than sixty wells so
far.
Philippa lives with her family on a small farm in the North of England. She
welcomes visitors to her website www.PhilippaGregory.com where there is a
readers group, historical background material to the novels, her travel writing,
journalism, and updated reports on Gardens for The Gambia.
This biography was last updated on 12/01/2006.
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