Joanna Briscoe
Encyclopedia
Early life
Joanna Briscoe was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1963. Much of her childhood was spent in the southwest of England. At the age of 10 years she moved with her family from Somerset to Jordan Manor, an isolated six-bedroomed thatched Devon long house set within 10 acres (40,468.6 m²) of land in a valley in Dartmoor
Dartmoor
Dartmoor is an area of moorland in south Devon, England. Protected by National Park status, it covers .The granite upland dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. The moorland is capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The...
. She was rather isolated and she occupied her time by reading and with her imagination by writing novels. Her novels written as a teenager were rejected by publishers, but she was convinced she would be an author.
Her parents took her out of a primary school to be home schooled for under a year by an unqualified teacher nearer to home at Tor Farm, another Devon longhouse, when she was 10 years old. Many of the lessons were out-of-doors on the tors. At the age of 13 years she moved onto King Edward VI Community College
King Edward VI Community College
King Edward VI Community College is a secondary school in Totnes, Devon, England. The College enjoy a favoured open site in the Dart valley amidst the rolling South Hams countryside...
, the local secondary school
Secondary school
Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...
in Totnes
Totnes
Totnes is a market town and civil parish at the head of the estuary of the River Dart in Devon, England within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
, and in the sixth form
Sixth form
In the education systems of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and of Commonwealth West Indian countries such as Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Jamaica and Malta, the sixth form is the final two years of secondary education, where students, usually sixteen to eighteen years of age,...
she studied English.
Career
She attended University College LondonUniversity College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
and worked for several years as a freelance journalist. Briscoe's short stories have featured in several anthologies. She has contributed widely to numerous publications, including the Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, the Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, and the Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
and broadcast on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
.
Her first novel Mothers and Other Lovers, in which the teenage Eleanor who tries to escape from a stultifying rural life only to fall in love with her mother's new female friend, won a Betty Trask Award
Betty Trask Award
The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. The awards were established in 1984 by the Society of Authors, at the bequest of the late Betty Trask, a reclusive author of over thirty romance novels...
. Briscoe spent a lot of time in New York, researching her second novel Skin (runner-up for the Encore Award) which explored the plastic surgery and the psychological tool taken on women by the beauty industry.
Her third novel, the psychological thriller Sleep With Me published in July 2005 is, according to author and critic Jonathan Coe
Jonathan Coe
Jonathan Coe is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name...
'… a beautifully written and emotionally candid novel which also happens to be a page-turner'. It has been published in several languages and was shortlisted for the Prince Maurice Award. Sleep With Me was adapted for ITV Drama by Andrew Davies
Andrew Davies
Andrew Davies may refer to:*Andrew Davies *Andrew Davies , Welsh Labour politician*Andrew R. T. Davies, Welsh Conservative politician*Andrew Davies , Welsh darts player*Andrew Davies , English defender...
starring Adrian Lester
Adrian Lester
-Personal life:Lester was born in Birmingham, England, the son of Jamaican immigrants Monica, a medical secretary, and Reginald, a manager for a contract cleaning company. He sang as a boy treble in the choir of St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham...
, Jodhi May
Jodhi May
Jodhi May is an English actress.-Early life:Born in Camden Town, London, May first acted at the age of 12 in 1988's A World Apart. The role earned her a Best Actress award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, shared with her co-stars Barbara Hershey and Linda Mvusi...
and Anamaria Marinca
Anamaria Marinca
Anamaria Marinca is a Romanian actress. She made her debut with the Channel 4 film Sex Traffic, for which she won British Academy Television Award for Best Actress...
.
Joanna Briscoe's fourth novel You is published in July 2011
Personal life
Joanna Briscoe lives in North London with her partner Charlotte MendelsonCharlotte Mendelson
-Biography:Her maternal grandparents were, in her words, "Hungarian-speaking-Czech, Ruthenian for about 10 minutes, Carpathian mountain-y, impossible to describe", who left Prague in 1939.She was born in 1972 in west London, in a flat on the Queensway...
and their two children.
Novels
- Mothers and Other Lovers (1994)
- Skin (1997)
- Sleep With Me (2005)
- You (2011)