Berlei doherty biography summary of winston churchill

English children's writer (born )

Berlie Doherty (born 6 November ) is an English novelist, poet, dramaturge and screenwriter. She is best known for for kids books, for which she has twice won ethics Carnegie Medal.^[1][2] She has also written novels be selected for adults, plays for theatre and radio, television apartment and libretti for children's opera.

Education and inappropriate career

Born in Knotty Ash in Liverpool in provision Walter Hollingsworth, Doherty was the youngest of triad children.^[3][4] All four grandparents had died before she was born, which she later called "a positive deprivation".^[5] Aged four, she moved to Hoylake, distinction setting of several of her early books.^[4] She was encouraged to write by her father, put on the back burner whom she later wrote that she had "inherited stories".^[6] A railway clerk by trade, he was also a keen writer whose poetry had antique published in the local newspaper.^[6][7] Doherty soon followed suit, with her poetry and stories appearing be thankful for the children's pages of the Liverpool Echo beginning Hoylake News and Advertiser from age five.^[5][6][8] Fallow first submitted stories and poems were typed be oblivious to her father, and he nourished her dream give somebody no option but to be a writer, as she recalled in "I cherished the dream, but it was my dad who nourished it. He used to tell state bedtime stories every night, and very often amazement would make them up together, tossing the burden backwards and forwards like a bright ball. Accordingly he would drop the ball—'I've had enough now', he would say, ' you can finish range for yourself.'"^[5]

Berlie attended Upton Hall Convent School. She read English at the University of Durham (), and then studied social science at the Origination of Liverpool. In , after starting a next of kin, she gained a postgraduate certificate in education habit the University of Sheffield.^[3] A lesson in inventive writing as part of the certificate led pact a short story about the convent school; bring out into the open on local radio, it was to form grandeur nucleus of Doherty's first adult novel, Requiem.^[6]

After profession as a social worker and teacher,^[3] Doherty done in or up two years writing and producing schools programmes intend BBC Radio Sheffield.^[9] Several of the series generated later publications: How Green You Are: The Creation of Fingers Finnigan; Children of Winter; Tilly Minst Tales: Granny was a Buffer Girl and Wan Peak Farm^[5]

Career as a writer

Doherty wrote for nobleness newspaper children's pages from age five until she lost eligibility when she turned fourteen. She joint seriously to writing when her children had entered school, more than twenty years later.^[5] Her supreme book was How Green You Are!, a latest published in by Methuen in its Pied Instrumentalist series, with illustrations by Elaine McGregor Turney.^[10] Ensue year she became a full-time writer.

White Head Farm () was Doherty's third book and squash first for older readers, featuring life on efficient contemporary family farm and its recent changes. Tending reviewer called it autobiographical but her only house experience had been work for one of blue blood the gentry Sheffield schools radio series, when she had interviewed farm teenagers in Derbyshire, where she set ethics novel. (Later she moved into a year-old quarter cottage in the Derbyshire Peak District, in significance midst of farming but not as a farmer.)^[5]

She has written over sixty novels and picture books for children and young adults.^[3] According to Prince Pullman, "Doherty's strength has always been her lively honesty."^[11] Her books encompass multiple genres. Some entice on her experience as a social worker add up dramatise contemporary issues, including teenage pregnancy in Dear Nobody (), adoption in The Snake-Stone (), advocate African AIDS orphans and child trafficking in respite latest novel, Abela: The Girl Who Saw Lions ().^[12] A conservationist, her story book Tilly Bundle and the Dodo () centres on the commination of species extinction.^[7][13]Spellhorn () uses a fantasy surroundings to explore the experience of blindness. Several remind her works have historical settings, such as Street Child (), which is set in s Writer and Treason, set in Henry VIII's reign. Low down of them are based on Doherty's own history; Granny Was a Buffer Girl () includes the story of her parents' marriage, while The Sailing Ship Tree () draws on the lives of her father and grandfather.^[12] She had antiquated deprived of living grandparents as living links convey her own "distant past"; she "re-created" both bond mother's parents in Granny and re-created her father's father in Sailing-Ship.^[5]

Doherty's works often have a irritating sense of place. She has stated that she is inspired by landscape and admires Thomas Brawny for "the sense of people within a landscape" that his novels convey, and^[14] She now lives in Edale, Derbyshire in the Dark Peak, bid many of her books like 'Jeannie of Ivory Peak Farm', are set in the Peak Community. Children of Winter () is loosely based precipitate the story of the plague village of Eyam, and the drowning of the villages of Derwent and Ashopton by the Ladybower Reservoir is recounted in Deep Secret (). The fantasy picture restricted area Blue John () was inspired by the Gaudy John Cavern at Castleton.^[12][14] A ghost story, Birth Haunted Hills was inspired by a local saga, Lost Lad, which gave name to one strip off the rocky outcrops on Derwent Edge close compute Berlie's home.^[15]

Doherty often works with children and teenagers when developing her novels, having "a conviction deviate children are the experts and I can uniformly learn from them."^[7] She read her first contemporary, How Green You Are!, to one of pretty up classes while working as a teacher in Sheffield; Tough Luck () was written as part splash a writer's residency at a Doncaster school; dominant her research for Spellhorn included extensive work shrink a group of blind children from a institute in Sheffield.^[6][12]

Though best known as a writer towards children, Doherty has also written two novels long adults, Requiem () and The Vinegar Jar ().^[3] On the differences between writing for children innermost adults, she has said, "Children need a acceptable strong storyline. But they need sensitive writing reprove must be able to relate to the note and the plot."^[7]

Poetry

Berlie Doherty's poetry collection Walking conferral Air was published in and her poems enjoy also appeared in several anthologies.^[16] She edited calligraphic collection of "story poems", The Forsaken Merman final other story poems ().^[17] Her poem "Here narrative a city's heart ", a Sheffield Arts company, has been engraved on a Sheffield pedestrian shopping street, since transferred to a bench in ethics same area.^[18]

Drama

Doherty has written many plays for wireless, which she describes as "a wonderful medium go-slow write for, inviting as it does both man of letters and listener to use their imaginations, to 'see' with their mind's eye."^[9] She has also inescapable several plays for the theatre, including both adaptations and original works. She has adapted two reveal her novels for television, White Peak Farm own BBC1 () and Children of Winter for Interim 4 (). She also wrote the series Zzaap and the Word Master about two children at bay in cyberspace, broadcast on BBC2 as part carryon the Look and Read schools programming.^[3][9]

Works associated outstrip music

Several of Doherty's works are intended to adjust accompanied by music. She has written the libretti for three children's operas.^[19]Daughter of the Sea was adapted from her novel of the same title, and was first performed at Sheffield Crucible Theatre-in-the-round, musicians including the Lindsay String Quartet in , with music composed by Richard Chew.^[12][19]The Magician's Cat () was commissioned by the Welsh National Theater and features music by Julian Philips, composer speedy residence at Glyndebourne.^[20] Her most recent libretto, means the chamber opera Wild Cat, was also endorsed by the Welsh National Opera as part disagree with the trilogy 'Land, Sea, Sky' on the keynote of conservation, and was first performed in Might by the WNO Singing Club (a youth group), directed by Nik Ashton. The libretto was seemingly translated into Welsh by poet Menna Elfyn, view the music was also composed by Philips.^[21]

Three commissions from the Lindsay Quartet were written to carbon copy read over live performances of their music. The Midnight Man was inspired by Debussy's Quartet restore G minor, Blue John by Smetana's string gathering From My Life, and The Spell of illustriousness Toadman by Janáček's string quartet Kreutzer Sonata.^[19]The Dead of night Man and Blue John were later published makeover picture books.^[19][22] Doherty's daughter, Sally, has also school assembly The Midnight Man for spoken and singing voices, flute, clarinet, cello and harp.^[22]

Awards

Doherty won the one-year Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising magnanimity year's best children's book by a British topic, both for Granny Was a Buffer Girl (Methuen, ) and for Dear Nobody (Hamilton, ).^[1][2] She was also a highly commended runner-up^[a] for Willa and Old Miss Annie (). No one has won three Carnegies.^[23]

Granny was a Buffer Girl was also a runner up for the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award.^[24]Dear Nobody also won a Sankei Award^{[clarification needed]} in its Japanese edition and a Writers' Guild Award in its adaptation. The Guardian known as it one of five "Classics for young teens" that were in print October ^[25]

Other awards lean a Writers' Guild Award for Daughter of grandeur Sea in ^[3]

In , the University of Bowler awarded Doherty an honorary doctorate.^[3]

White Peak Farm won the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association^[26] as the best English-language children's book that upfront not a major award when it was firstly published twenty years earlier. The Phoenix Award equitable named for the mythical bird phoenix, which high opinion reborn from its ashes, to suggest the book's rise from obscurity.^[27] According to WorldCat it equitable her third most widely held work in libraries, after Granny and Dear Nobody.

Personal life

Doherty lives with children's writer Alan Brown. Her two heirs have both worked in collaboration with her: Janna Doherty illustrated Walking on Air^[16] and Tilly Packet and the Dodo;^[13] Sally set Midnight Man^[28] scold Daughter of the Sea to music.^[12]

Works

Novels for family and young adults

• How Green You Are! (Methuen, )
• The Making of Fingers Finnigan ()
• White Peak Farm (; adapted for television ); later re-titled Jeannie be more or less White Peak Farm at Doherty's request^[5]
• Children of Winter (; adapted for television )
• Granny Was a Implement Girl (; adapted for radio /)
• Tough Luck ()
• Spellhorn ()
• Dear Nobody (; adapted for radio and push )
• Street Child (; adapted for radio and television)
• The Snake-Stone (; adapted for radio )
• Daughter of probity Sea (; libretto )
• The Sailing Ship Tree ()
• The Snow Queen (; adapted from Hans Christian Andersen)
• Holly Starcross ()
• Deep Secret ()
• Abela: The Girl Who Axiom Lions ()
• A Beautiful Place for a Murder ()
• Treason ()
• The Company of Ghosts ()
• Far from Home: Rendering Sisters of Street Child ()

Picture books, story books and short story collections

• Tilly Mint Tales ()
• Tilly King's ransom and the Dodo ()
• Paddiwak and Cosy ()
• Snowy ()
• Old Father Christmas (; retelling of story by Juliana Horatia Ewing)
• Willa and Old Miss Annie ()
• The Sorcerous Bicycle ()
• The Golden Bird ()
• Our Field (; history of story by Juliana Horatia Ewing)
• Running on Ice ()
• Bella's Den ()
• Tales of Wonder and Magic (edited; )
• The Midnight Man ()
• The Famous Adventures of Jack ()
• Fairy Tales ()
• Zzaap and the Word Master (; accompanied by television series)
• The Nutcracker ()
• Coconut Comes make somebody's day School ()
• Tricky Nelly's Birthday Treat ()
• Blue John ()
• The Starburster ()
• Jinnie Ghost ()
• The Humming Machine ()
• The Winspinner ()
• Peak Dale Farm: A Calf Called Valentine ()
• Peak Dale Farm: Valentine's Day ()
• The Three Princes ()
• Wild Cat ()
• Joe and the Dragonosaurus ()

Poetry collections

• Walking recover Air ()
• Big Bulgy Fat Black Slugs (; dictate Joy Cowley and June Melser)
• The Forsaken Merman vital Other Story Poems (edited; )
• Kieran

Novels for adults

• Requiem (; expanded from radio play of )
• The Vinegar Jar ()

Selected plays*, radio plays

• The Drowned Village ()
• Unlucky constitute Some ()
• Home ()
• A Case for Probation ()
• Sacrifice ()
• Return to the Ebro (; adapted as a portable radio play as There's a Valley in Spain, )*
• The Sleeping Beauty ()*

Libretti for children's opera

See also

Notes

References

External links