Biography
She obtained a degree in English and Art History from Aberystwyth University before taking an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews, where she briefly taught on the undergraduate Creative Writing programme. She still teaches creative writing, regularly giving courses for the Arvon Foundation.She began her writing career as a poet, publishing poems in various literary magazines.
Her debut novel, Haweswater (2002), is a rural tragedy about the disintegration of a community of Cumbrian hill-farmers, due to the building of a reservoir. It won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book).
Her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo (2004), the biography of a fictional tattoo artist, is set in early twentieth century Morecambe Bay and Coney Island. The novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2004, and again for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2005. In France, it was shortlisted for the Prix Femina Étranger 2004.
Her third novel, The Carhullan Army (2007), a science fiction novel, won the 2007 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and was shortlisted for the 2008 Arthur C. Clarke Award. In America, the novel was published under the title Daughters of the North. She was invited to become writer-in-residence by the Grasmere based Ullswater Trust – an organisation which supports and encourages writers – while working on the book.
Her most recent novel, How to Paint a Dead Man (2009), was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
In 2013 she was included in the Granta list of 20 best young writers,.
All her novels are published by Faber and Faber; she participates in writing tuition classes during in-residence writing courses run by The Faber Academy. Sarah Hall has lived in both the United Kingdom and in North Carolina.
Read more about this topic: Sarah Hall (writer)
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