Wendy Perriam
Wendy Perriam is an English novelist and graduate of St Anne's College, Oxford who started writing at the age of five and wrote her first novel at eleven. Perriam then went silent as she struggled through a long period of depression, having been expelled from her Catholic school for heresy and told she was in Satan's power. Many of her early novels explore the abuses and, conversely, the great attractions of Catholicism. Perriam's work is also renowned for its explicit sexual content.
In 2002, she won the Literary Review's Bad Sex Award for Tread softly.[1][2]
Perriam has appeared frequently on television and radio, and was once a regular contributor to the radio series Stop the Week and Fourth Column. Her work has been critically acclaimed for its psychological insight and for its power to disturb as well as divert. Described by the Sunday Telegraph as "one of the most interesting unsung novelists of her generation", Perriam published her 23rd work, 'I'm on the train!' , a short-story collection, in April, 2012.
Her 16th novel, Broken Places , published in paperback in 2012, was shortlisted for 2011 'Mind Book of the Year' award. In January 2013, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Kingston University for her “outstanding contribution to literature and reading pleasure.”
Her most recent novel, An Enormous Yes was published in June 2013, and her latest collection of short stories, Bad Mothers Brilliant Lovers was released in January 2015.
Personal life
Perriam has been twice married and has two stepchildren. Her own daughter - and only child, after two miscarriages - died of cancer in 2008. Perriam lives in London.
Publications
- Novels
- Absinthe for Elevenses (1980)
- Cuckoo (1981)
- After Purple (1982)
- Born of Woman (1983)
- The Stillness the Dancing (1985)
- Sin City (1987)
- Devils, for a Change (1989)
- Fifty-Minute Hour (1990)
- Bird Inside (1992)
- Michael, Michael (1993)
- Breaking and Entering (1994)
- Coupling (1996)
- Second Skin (1999)
- Lying (2001)
- Tread Softly (2002)
- Broken Places (2010)
- An Enormous Yes (2013)
- Short Story Collections
- Dreams, Demons and Desire (2001)
- Virgin in the Gym (2004)
- Laughter Class (2006)
- The Biggest Female in the World (2007)
- Little Marvel (2008)
- The Queen's Margarine (2009)
- 'I'm on the train!' (2012)
- Bad Mothers Brilliant Lovers (2015)