Patricia Craig (writer)

Patricia Craig (born 1940s[1][a]) is a writer, anthologist and literary critic from Northern Ireland, living in Antrim, County Antrim.

Personal life

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She was born in Belfast to Nora (née Brady) and Andy Craig[7] and attended St Dominic's Grammar School for Girls[8] before studying at the Belfast School of Art and then at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London (where she obtained a Diploma in Art & Design, Hons.). She returned to Northern Ireland in 1999.[7] She is married to the Welsh artist Jeffrey Morgan.[7]

Career

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In the late 1960s, Craig was at Notre Dame Convent School in Battersea, working as an art mistress, but longed to have a literary career.[1] Since then, she has written memoirs, edited several anthologies and written articles for newspapers.[9] In London she began to collaborate with Mary Cadogan, editing several books on children's literature. Their first book, You’re a Brick Angela!, became a classic.[10]

On her return to Northern Ireland, she began to write books with an Irish theme. One of the first was a biography of Brian Moore which was described by the critic Seamus Deane as 'a crisp and intelligent account of a man and a writer for whom Craig's clean and incisive approach seems perfectly appropriate'.[11] Perhaps her most popular book was the memoir Asking for Trouble (1987) which details her schooldays, culminating in her expulsion from school.[8]

Awards

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She was Honorary Lecturer at Queen's University Belfast where she was appointed to the Board of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry.[12][9]

Publications

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  • You're a Brick Angela!: The Girls' Story 1839–1985 (1976)
  • Women and Children First: The Fiction of Two World Wars (1978)
  • The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction (1986)
  • The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories (1990)
  • The Rattle of The North: An Anthology of Ulster Prose (1992)
  • The Penguin Book of British Comic Stories (1992)
  • The Oxford Book of Modern Women's Stories (1994)
  • The Oxford Book of Schooldays (1995)
  • The Oxford Book of Travel Stories (1996)
  • The Oxford Book of Ireland (1998)
  • Twelve Irish Ghost Stories (1998)
  • The Belfast Anthology (1999)
  • The Oxford Book of Detective Stories (2000)
  • Brian Moore: A Biography (2002)[11]
  • Asking for Trouble (2008)[8]
  • A Twisted Root – Ancestral Entanglements in Ireland (2012)[13]
  • Bookworm, A Memoir of Childhood Reading (2015)

Notes

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  1. ^ Craig stated that she was a 20-something in the late 1960s, which would have meant that she was likely born in the 1940s.[1] There are sources that state that her year of birth is 1952,[2][3] and in 2015, the Belfast Telegraph stated that she was 63, which would mean she was born about 1952.[4] One source states that she was born on 16 January 1949.[5] The Independent states that she was born after the war and grew up in the 1950s.[6] It is also believed that her year of birth was 1942.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Craig, Patricia (May–June 2021). "PN Review Print and Online Poetry Magazine - Val Warner: A Reminiscence". PN Review. 47 (5). Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  2. ^ "Literature through the eyes of two Irish writers". TLS. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
  3. ^ "Patricia Craig, VIAF ID 36933157". viaf.org. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  4. ^ Brankin, Una (13 November 2015). "Patricia: A literary childhood brought to book". belfasttelegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  5. ^ "Craig, Patricia 1949–". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  6. ^ "Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading, by Patricia Craig". 18 November 2015. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  7. ^ a b c Brankin, Una (13 November 2015). "Patricia: A literary childhood brought to book". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  8. ^ a b c O'Doherty, Malachi (8 January 2008). "Asking for Trouble, by Patricia Craig". The Independent. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  9. ^ a b "Dr Patricia Craig". Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  10. ^ Sibley, Brian (6 October 2014). "Mary Cadogan Obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  11. ^ a b Deane, Seamus (14 December 2002). "War and peace". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
  12. ^ "Queen's University Belfast – The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry". 10 April 2019.
  13. ^ Elliott, Marianne (2 February 2013). "Who do you think you are?". The Irish Times. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
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