William Nicholson

William Nicholson was born in 1948, and grew up in Sussex and Gloucestershire. He was educated at Downside School and Christ’s College, Cambridge, and then joined BBC Television, where he worked as a documentary film maker. There his ambition to write, directed first into novels, was channeled into television drama. His plays for television include Shadowlands and Life Story , both of which won the BAFTA Best Television Drama award in their year; other award-winners were Sweet As You Are and The March . In 1988 he received the Royal Television Society’s Writer’s Award. His first play, an adaptation of Shadowlands for the stage, was Evening Standard Best Play of 1990, and went on to a Tony Award winning run on Broadway. He was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of the film version, which was directed by Richard Attenborough and starred Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger.

His novel for older children, The Wind Singer, won the Smarties Prize Gold Award on publication in 2000, and the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award in 2001. Its sequel, Slaves of the Mastery , was published in May 2001, and the final volume in the trilogy, Firesong , in May 2002. The trilogy has been sold in every major foreign market, from the US to China.

LATEST PUBLICATION:

RICH AND MAD. Egmont (April 2010)

‘I’m not afraid of loving. I’m just afraid of not being loved back.’Maddy Fisher has decided to fall in love. And not just any sort of love: can’t-eat can’t-sleep crazy in love. Rich Ross is after the same thing. He’s set his sights high, and he’s going to make it happen. The problem is, in life’s messy whirlwind of friends and lies and sex and porn, the real thing can be hard to find. But there’s always a first time for everything…