An Island of Our Own

About Sally Nicholls

Sally Nicholls was born in Stockton-on-Tees, just after midnight, in a thunderstorm. Her father died when she was two and she and her brother Ian were brought up by her mother. She always wanted to write - when people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, 'I used to say "I'm going to be a writer" - very definite'.

After school she worked in a Red Cross Hospital in Japan, travelled around Australia and New Zealand and returned to do a degree in Philosophy and Literature at Warwick.

Her first book Ways to Live Forever was a multiple prize winner:
Winner of the Glen Dimplex Prize for New Writers 2008.
Winner of Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize 2008.
Winner of Luchs Prize (Germany) for best children’s book published in Germany in the last year.
Longlisted for Branford Boase Award 2009.

She now lives in a little flat in London and has a part-time job as an administrator for a charity called Effective Intervention. The rest of her time is spent writing stories and trying to believe her luck.

Photo by Eric Luke