Manda Scott is a veterinary surgeon, writer and climber. Born and educated in Scotland, she now lives in Suffolk with two lurchers and too many cats. Known primarily as a crime writer, her first novel, Hen’s Teeth was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Her subsequent novels are Night Mares, Stronger than Death and No Good Deed, for which she was hailed by the Times as ‘one of Britain’s most important crime writers’.
Manda Scott is Chair of the Historical Writers' Association.
Michael Morpurgo, former Children's Laureate and author of bestsellers such as War Horse and Why The Whales Came, is the inaugural President of the Historical Writers' Association beginning in Autumn 2011. The Historical Writers' Association (www.thehwa.co.uk) will celebrate its first anniversary in October. It was founded to bring social and professional support to writers of historical fiction and non-fiction, publishers, agents and booksellers, all bound both by their common interest in historical books and by the sense of community that comes from a shared obsession.
Since its creation, the Historical Writers' Association has launched the first Festival of Historical Writing in association with English Heritage as part of their Festival of History at Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire this July. In September, a partnership was announced with Goldsboro Books to launch a new literary prize, the HWA/Goldsboro Crown for Debut Historical Fiction, the first of which will be presented at Goldsboro's History in the Court Festival next year on 27th September 2012.