Christie Watson

Christie Watson (born 1976) is a British novelist whose novel Tiny Sunbirds Far Away won the Costa First Novel Award in the 2011 Costa Book Awards.^[1]

Born in Stevenage, she left school at the age of 16 and after volunteering for a year at Scope (then the Spastics Society) went into nursing.^[2] She trained at Great Ormond Street Hospital and worked for more than 10 years as a children's nurse before she began writing.^[3] She met her Nigerian paediatrician partner when they were both working at St Mary's Hospital in west London.^[4] She won the Malcolm Bradbury Bursary,^[3] which enabled her to take an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, from where she graduated in 2009.^[5]

Bibliography

• Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, Quercus, 2011. ISBN 978-1849163750
• Where Women are Kings, Quercus, 2014. ISBN 978-1849163811

References

1. Anita Singh (3 January 2012). "Nurse Christie Watson wins Costa Book Award but won't give up the day job". The Telegraph. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
2. Rosamund urwin, "Interview: Christie Watson, author of Tiny Sunbirds Far Away", The Scotsman, 31 December 2011.
3. "Christie Watson — About the Author", Foyles.
4. Nina Lakhani, "Christie Watson: 'Life, death, what makes us human – nursing and writing are about the big questions'", The Independent, 23 January 2012.
5. Laura Barnett (16 November 2011). "Is the UEA creative writing course still the best?". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 June 2014.

External links

• christiewatson.co.uk
• "Christie Watson's novel out of Africa", Evening Standard, 29 November 2011.
• "Christie Watson, the Costa-nominated writer who can’t give up nursing", The Telegraph, 20 November 2011.