Frances Hardinge

Frances Hardinge (born 1973) is a British children's writer. Her debut novel, Fly by Night, won the 2006 Branford Boase Award and was listed as one of the School Library Journal Best Books. She has also been shortlisted for and received a number of other awards for both her novels as well as some of her short stories.

Frances Hardinge
Born	1973 (age 50–51) Brighton, East Sussex, England
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	British
Genre	Young adult fiction
Notable works	Fly By Night Cuckoo Song The Lie Tree
Notable awards	Branford Boase Award 2006 Fly By Night Robert Holdstock Award 2015 Cuckoo Song Costa Book Awards 2015 The Lie Tree
Website
www.franceshardinge.com

Early life and education

Hardinge was born in 1973 in Brighton, England, and dreamed of writing at the age of four. She studied English at Somerville College, Oxford and was the founder member of a writers' workshop there.^[1][2]

Career

Her writing career started after she won a short story magazine competition. Shortly after winning she wrote her debut novel, Fly by Night, in her spare time and showed it to Macmillan Publishers after pressure from a friend.^[1][2] It was published in 2005, and was listed as one of the School Library Journal Best Books and won the Branford Boase Award.^[3][4][5] Her 2015 novel The Lie Tree won the 2015 Costa Book Award Book of the Year, the only children's book to do so besides Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass in 2001.^[6]

Personal life

Hardinge is often seen wearing a black hat and enjoys dressing in old-fashioned clothing.^[1][2]

Awards and honours

Year	Title	Award	Category	Result	Ref
2006	Fly by Night	Branford Boase Award	—	Won
2011	Twilight Robbery	Guardian Children's Fiction Prize	—	Shortlisted
2012	A Face Like Glass	Kitschies	Red Tentacle	Shortlisted
2015	Cuckoo Song	British Fantasy Award	Robert Holdstock Award	Won	[7]
		Carnegie Medal	—	Shortlisted
	The Lie Tree	Costa Book Awards	Book of the Year	Won	[8]
			Children's	Won	[9][10]
2016		Boston Globe–Horn Book Award	Fiction	Won	[11]
		Carnegie Medal	—	Shortlisted
2021		Honkaku Mystery of the Decade	Translated Honkaku Mystery of the Decade – 2010s	Shortlisted

Works

Novels

• Fly by Night (2005)
• Verdigris Deep (2007); US title, Well Witched
• Gullstruck Island (2009); US title, The Lost Conspiracy
• Twilight Robbery (2011); US title, Fly Trap – sequel to Fly by Night
• A Face Like Glass (2012)
• Cuckoo Song (2014)
• The Lie Tree (2015)
• A Skinful of Shadows (September 2017)
• Deeplight (October 2019)
• Unraveller (September 2022)
• Island of Whispers (2023); illustrated by Emily Gravett^[12]
• The Forest of a Thousand Eyes (2024); illustrated by Emily Gravett

Short fiction

Hardinge has written several short stories published in magazines and anthologies.^[13][14]

• "Shining Man", The Dream Zone 8 (Jan 2001)
• "Communion", Wordplay 1 (Spring 2002)
• "Captive Audience", Piffle 7 (Oct 2002)
• "Bengal Rose", Scribble 20 (Spring 2003)
• "Black Grass", All Hallows 43 (Summer 2007)
• "Halfway House", Alchemy 3 (Jan 2006)
• "Behind The Mirror", serialised in First News (2007)
• "Payment Due", in Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, ed. Jonathan Strahan (Random House, 2012)
• "Flawless", in Twisted Winter, ed. Catherine Butler (Black, 2013)
• "Hayfever", Subterranean, Winter 2014 (Dec 2013)
• "Blind Eye", The Outcast Hours, ed. Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin (Solaris, 2019)
• "God's Eye", in Mystery & Mayhem, (Egmont Publishing, 2016)

References

1. "Frances Hardinge Biography". Kidzworld. Retrieved 11 June 2007.
2. "Frances' Biography". Frances Hardinge's Dark Tower. Archived from the original on 26 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-18.
3. "The Library: Awards and Prizes". Frances Hardinge's Dark Tower. Archived from the original on 26 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-18.
4. "Branford Boase Award 2006". The Branford Boase Award. 2006. Archived from the original on 19 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-18.
5. Jones, Trevelyn; Toth, Luann; Charnizon, Marlene; Grabarek, Daryl; Fleishhacker, Joy (1 December 2006). "Best Books 2006". School Library Journal. Archived from the original on 8 June 2008.
6. Brown, Mark (26 January 2016). "Frances Hardinge's The Lie Tree wins Costa book of the year 2015". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
7. "sfadb : Frances Hardinge Awards". www.sfadb.com. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
8. "2015 Book of the Year" (PDF). The Costa Book Awards. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
9. "2015 Costa Category Award Winners" (PDF). Costa Coffee. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 January 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
10. Drabble, Emily (4 January 2016). "Frances Hardinge scoops the Costa children's book award 2015 with The Lie Tree". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
11. "The Lie Tree: Author Frances Hardinge's 2016 BGHB Fiction Award Speech". The Horn Book. 1 December 2016. Retrieved 9 November 2018.
12. Bearn, Emily (21 September 2023). "Come, children, and meet the souls of the dead". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 22 September 2023.
13. "Frances Hardinge – Summary Bibliography". ISFDB. Retrieved 2014-10-18.
14. "The Library: Short Stories". Frances Hardinge's Dark Tower. Archived from the original on 26 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-05-18.

External links

• Official website
• Fly by Night, Blog by Day — Tour blog
• Frances Hardinge at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Frances Hardinge at Library of Congress, with 4 library catalogue records
• Hardinge, Frances (2 April 2014). "Frances Hardinge with Cambridge Jones, from 26 Characters by The Story Museum" (audio) (Interview). Interviewed by Jones, Cambridge.