Siobhan Dowd
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Siobhan (or Siobhán) Dowd (4 February 1960 – 21 August 2007) was a British/Irish writer; she wrote the drama/mystery, A Swift Pure Cry.
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[edit] Biography
Siobhan Dowd was born in London to Irish parents. She attended a Roman Catholic grammar school in south London and held a BA Hons degree in Classics from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University and an MA with distinction from Greenwich University in Gender and Ethnic Studies.
In 1984, she joined the writer's organisation International PEN, initially as a researcher for its Writers in Prison Committee and later as Program Director of PEN American Center's Freedom-to-Write Committee in New York City. Her work there included founding and leading the Rushdie Defense Committee USA and travelling to Indonesia and Guatemala to investigate local human rights conditions for writers. During her seven-year stay in New York, Dowd was named one of the "top 100 Irish-Americans" by Irish-America Magazine and AerLingus, for her global anti-censorship work.
On her return to the UK, Dowd co-founded, with Rachel Billington, English PEN's readers and writers program. The program takes authors into schools in socially deprived areas, as well as prisons, young offender's institutions and community projects. During 2004, Dowd served as Deputy Commissioner for Children's Rights in Oxfordshire, working with local government to ensure that statutory services affecting children's lives conform with UN protocols.[citation needed]
Siobhan Dowd died of breast cancer on 21 August 2007, aged 47; she was survived by her husband (widower), Geoff Morgan, a librarian.
[edit] Works
Dowd edited two anthologies in the Threatened Literature Series for the Freedom to Write Committee of the PEN American Center: "This Prison Where I live" (Cassell, 1996) and, jointly with Ian Hancock and Rajko Djuric [1]
An invitation by Tony Bradman to contribute a story about an Irish “Pavee” (gypsy/traveller) to his collection of short stories for children about racism, “Skin deep” (Puffin, 2004), led to a new career as an author of children’s books. A Swift Pure Cry, Dowd's first novel, was published by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, in March 2006. It was long-listed for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, and short-listed for the Booktrust Teenage Prize, the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize, the Sheffield Children's Book Award, the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, the CBI Bisto Book of the Year Award. It was also on the Carnegie Medal Shortlist for 2007. In May 2007, Dowd was awarded the Children's Book Ireland Eilis Dillon Award (sponsored by Bisto), and in June 2007 she was awarded the Branford Boase Award.
The London Eye Mystery was Dowd's second novel. It was published by David Fickling Books in June 2007. In May 2008, Dowd was awarded posthumously with the €10,000 Bisto Book of the Year prize for The London Eye Mystery, her second children's book.
At the time of her death, Dowd had completed two further novels. Bog Child is scheduled for publication in February 2008, and Solace of the Road in January 2009.
[edit] References
- ^ [1] "The Roads of the Roma: a PEN Anthology of Gypsy writers" (University of Hertfordshire Press, 1998 and 2004)
