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Life
1956- ; b. Halifax, Yorkshire; dg. E. P. Thompson, the Marxist historian, party-member to 1956, and founding member of CND with his wife Dorothy; moved with family to Leamington Spa, 1964, and to Worcester, 1971 [aetat. 15]; worked initially with racehorses in England and USA; travelled to India, where she did voluntary work at the Maharashtra orphanage on her second visit; stayed at Santiniketan College, assoc. with Tagore (a friend of her father); moved to Ireland between those visits; became an official resident in 1981; settled with her partner Conor Minogue at Inagh, Co. Clare, 1984, with whom two dgs., Cliodhna and Dearbhlal ran small holding here; |
joined N. Clare Writers’ Workshop, meeting weekly at Ennistymon Library, with Knute Skinner and others; issued There Is Something (1992), under Knute&#`46;s Signpost Press imprint; separated from her partner and moved to Kinvara, Co. Galway, 1994, divorcing afterwards; issued Switchers (1994), a first novel, with Aran Press, later to be reprinted by Random House Children's Books (1997) after Aran failed; issued Thin Air (1999), about a west of Ireland family shattered by their daughter's disappearance; |
issued An Act of Worship (2000), involving romance and beef-scandals in Ireland; winner of Guardian and Whitebread Children's Book Awards with The New Policeman (2005); issued The Fourth Horseman (2006), a novel about the war on terror and a scheme to save the red squirrel; she is three-times winner of the Bisto Children's Award in Ireland; plays the Irish fiddle. |
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Works
Adult fiction, Thin Air (1999); Down Among the Gods (q.d.); An Act of Worship (London: Lir Sceptre 2000), 266pp.
For children, The Beguilers (London: Bodley Head 2001), 256pp.; The Alchemist’s Apprentice (London: Bodley Head 2002), 196pp.; Switchers (London: Bodley Head 1997), 224pp.; Midnight's Choice (1998); Wild Blood (London: Bodley Head 1999), 168pp. Also Annan Water; Creature Of The Night; The Fourth Horseman; The Last of the High Kings; and The Missing Link Trilogy (viz., The Missing Link; Only Human; Origins).
Omnibus Edn., The Switchers Trilogy (London: Red Fox 2004), 552pp. [Switchers; Midnight’s Choice; Wild Blood], 553pp.
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Reference
Websites: See author's homepage [dated 2006; accessed 02.08.2009].
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Notes
The New Policeman (2005): Thompson subjects Kinvara, the small Irish town where she lives, to the fate of the rest of the western world - there's no time for anything. It turns out that time is leaking away into the world of the fairies - putting the people of Tir na nOg in crisis since the continual leakage is threatening their existence. / Enter JJ, Thompson’s fifteen-year-old male protagonist. (See Dina Rabinovitch, ‘Author of the Month: Kate Thompson’ [interview-article], in The Guardian, 24 Jan. 2006 [online; accessed 02.08.2009].
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