Kate Thompson (author)

Kate Thompson (born 10 November 1956)^[1] is a British-Irish writer best known for children's novels. Most of her children's fiction is fantasy but several of her books also deal with the consequences of genetic engineering.

Katharine Anna Thompson^[1] was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, the youngest child of the social historians and peace activists E. P. Thompson and Dorothy Towers. She has lived in Ireland since 1981 and many of her books are set there. She worked with horses and travelled in India, then settled in 1984 in Inagh in the west of Ireland with her partner Conor Minogue.^[2] They have two daughters, Cliodhna and Dearbhla. She is an accomplished fiddler with an interest in Irish traditional music, which is reflected in The New Policeman.

She won two major annual awards for The New Policeman (Bodley Head, 2005), set in modern Kinvara and the Irish mythological Tír na nÓg: the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize^[3] and the Whitbread Children's Book Award. It also won the Dublin Airport Authority Children's Book of the Year Award for 2005.

She has won the Bisto Children's Book of the Year Award four times, for The Beguilers, The Alchemist's Apprentice, Annan Water and The New Policeman. Creature of the Night was shortlisted for the 2008 Booktrust Teenage Prize and the 2009 Carnegie Medal.^[4]

Works

For adults[1] There is Something (1992), poetry Down Among the Gods (1997) Thin Air (1999) An Act of Worship (2000) Illustrated books Highway Robbery (2008)

Children's novels Switchers trilogy Switchers (1997) Midnight's Choice (1998) Wild Blood (1999) Missing Link or Fourth World trilogy The Missing Link (2000) Only Human (2001) Origins (2002) The Beguilers (2001) The Alchemist's Apprentice (2002) Annan Water (2004) New Policeman or Liddy trilogy The New Policeman (2005) The Last of the High Kings (2007) The White Horse Trick (2010) The Fourth Horseman (2006) Creature of the Night (2008) Wanted! (2010)

References

1. Thompson, Kate, 1956-". Library of Congress Name Authority File. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2013-06-01. LC cites email from author, 14 January 2010.
2. "katethompson.info ~Biography"
3. Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2005 (top page). guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-08-01.
4. "2009 Awards: Carnegie shortlisted books". CILIP. Retrieved 2012-06-10.

External links

• Official website
• The music of time: Julia Eccleshare talks to Kate Thompson, winner of the 2005 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize (The Guardian, 30 September 2005)
• Author of the month: Kate Thompson (Dina Rabinovitch, The Guardian, 24 January 2006)
• Kate Thompson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database