| Jenn Ashworth | |
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Jenn Ashworth at a creative writing workshop in Ashton under Lyne, May 2010. |
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| Born | 1982 Preston, Lancashire, England |
| Occupation | Short story writer, novelist |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Cambridge University, Manchester Centre for New Writing |
| Notable work(s) | A Kind of Intimacy, Cold Light |
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jennashworth.co.uk |
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Jenn Ashworth is an English writer. She was born in 1982 in Preston, Lancashire.[1] She has graduated from Cambridge University and the Manchester Centre for New Writing. She previously worked as a librarian in a category B men's prison, but has given that up to enable her to devote herself full time to writing and teaching creative writing.
She founded and worked as the coordinator of the Central Lancs Writing Hub.[2] She has also taught creative writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester and at the University of Central Lancashire.She currently runs a literature consultancy called The Writing Smithy alongside the poet Sarah Hymas and works as an editor and mentor there.
In March 2011 she was featured as one of the BBC Culture Show's Best 12 New Novelists as selected by a panel including John Mullan.
She has written many short stories, and her first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, was published in February 2009.[3] It is the story of a lonely woman failing to come to grips with reality, unable to relate to others, and full of self deception.[4] It contains strong elements of both comedy and tragedy, and eventually violence.[5]
Two earlier novels are both unpublished. One of them was lost as a result of a computer theft in 2004.[6] However, an extract from this lost novel was the winner of the 2003 Quiller-Couch Prize for Creative Writing at Cambridge University.[3] She has recently published another novel, Cold Light (April 2011), which she says is intended to be "dark and funny and odd".[6] This novel tells the story of three teenage girls, one of whom dies with her boyfriend in suspicious circumstances. The novel is set on the tenth anneversary of the death, when a memorial summerhouse is built and another body is found.