Sally Nicholls | |
|---|---|
 Sally Nicholls during 2006 | |
| Born | (1983-06-22)22 June 1983 (age 42) |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | British |
| Notable works | Ways to Live Forever (2008) Season of Secrets (2009) |
| Website | |
| www | |
Sally Nicholls (born 22 June 1983) is a prize-winningBritish children's bookauthor.[1][2]
Nicholls was born and grew up inStockton-on-Tees,England. She attendedGreat Ayton Friends' School until its closure and subsequentlyEgglescliffe School until 2001.[3][4][5]
On finishing school, Nicholls chose to travel around the world. She reachedAustralia andNew Zealand, following a period of working inJapan at aRed Cross hospital.[1][5]
She returned to the United Kingdom to begin abachelor's degree in Philosophy and Literature at theUniversity of Warwick.[1] Following that, she signed up to continue withBath Spa University, taking their "Writing for Young People"master's degree, offered by the School of English and Creative Studies there.[1]
As of 2012 Nicholls lives in Oxford.[6] She is a regular atQuaker meetings[7][8] includingYoung Friends General Meeting.[9]
Nicholls' first three novels all have death as the central theme.
Her first novel,Ways to Live Forever, was written during her time at Bath Spa.[1] The story is that of an 11-year-old child called Sam who is dying ofleukaemia (a form ofcancer), written as the scrapbook of the child.[10] This book was published by Marion Lloyd Books, part ofScholastic Press in January 2008. It was made into amovie of the same title released in 2010.[11]
Her second book wasSeason of Secrets, based on a pagan summer god, orGreen Man. This novel originally had the working titlesThe Green Man andThe Midnight Hunter.[12] It was published in April 2009.[13]
Her third book,All Fall Down, is about a 14-year-old girl in the year of theBlack Death, as she experiences the deaths of many of her family and neighbours, and struggles to save her surviving family. It was published in 2012, also by Marion Lloyd Books.[6]
Her fourth book,Close Your Pretty Eyes, is about 11-year-old Olivia, who has spent most of her life in the care system, with many different foster parents, most of whom she has despised and treated badly. In the book Olivia believes that she encounters the ghost ofAmelia Dyer, real 19th-century baby-farmer who murdered many of the babies she was paid to care for.[14]
Her fifth book,An Island of Our Own, is about 12-year-old Holly, who with her older and younger brothers form a "a family in hardship". Motivated by Holly, they search for a buried treasure.[15]
Nicholls contributed to Mystery & Mayhem byEgmont Publishing, published in May 2016 along with 11 other authors includingJulia Golding,Katherine Woodfine, Clementine Beauvais, Elen Caldecott, Susie Day, Frances Hardinge, Caroline Lawrence, Helen Moss,Kate Pankhurst, Robin Stevens and Harriet Whitehorn.[16]
Her sixth book,Things a Bright Girl Can Do, published in 2017, is a historical novel set in England between 1914 and 1918. It centres around three young women, their involvement with theSuffragette movement, and the effects of theGreat War on their lives.[17]
In 2009, Nicholls won the Bolton Book Awards for Ways to Live Forever
Sally Nicholls has been named Glen Dimplex New Writer of the Year 2008 for her bookWays to live forever, ... At a gala awards ceremony last night (10 November) in Dublin's Hugh Lane Gallery, Mr Martin Naughton ... presented the awards ... with a further €20,000 going to Sally Nicholls for winning the overall prize.