Kate Thompson author page

Kate Thompson biography

Kate Thompson (born 1956) is a British–Irish writer best known for children’s and young adult fiction. Publishing for both adults and younger readers since the 1990s, she is closely associated with contemporary fantasy that draws on Irish music, myth and landscape.

Her breakthrough novel for young readers, The New Policeman (2005), won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Whitbread (Costa) Children’s Book Award. It began the Liddy sequence, continued in The Last of the High Kings and concluded with The White Horse Trick. Thompson’s other notable titles include The Beguilers, The Alchemist’s Apprentice, Annan Water and the realist novel Creature of the Night (2008), which was shortlisted for the BookTrust Teenage Prize and the Carnegie Medal.

Thompson has received the Children’s Books Ireland Book of the Year (Bisto) award a record four times, for The Beguilers, The Alchemist’s Apprentice, Annan Water and The New Policeman. Her books have been issued in multiple formats and languages, and are widely used in schools for their blend of accessible storytelling and thematic depth.

In addition to writing for younger audiences, Thompson has published fiction for adults. Her work frequently engages with time, tradition, folklore and the ethics of science, while remaining grounded in character and voice.

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