Caitlin Moran

Caitlin Moran
Caitlin Moran at the 2016 Hay Festival
Born	Catherine Elizabeth Moran (1975-04-05) 5 April 1975 (age 41) Brighton, England
Residence	London, England
Occupation	Journalist, author, broadcaster
Spouse(s)	Peter Paphides (m. 1999)
Children	2

Catherine Elizabeth "Caitlin" Moran (born 5 April 1975) is an English journalist, author, and broadcaster at The Times, where she writes three columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, a TV review column, and the satirical Friday column "Celebrity Watch".

Moran is British Press Awards (BPA) Columnist of the Year for 2010, and both BPA Critic of the Year 2011 and Interviewer of the Year 2011. In 2012, she was named Columnist of the Year by the London Press Club, and Culture Commentator at the Comment Awards in 2013.

Moran was born in Brighton, the eldest of eight children; she has four sisters and three brothers. Her father, who is Irish, was described by Aida Edemariam in The Guardian as a former "drummer and psychedelic rock pioneer" who became "confined to the sofa by osteoarthritis". Moran lived in a three-bedroom council house in Wolverhampton with her parents and siblings, an experience she described as akin to The Hunger Games.

Moran attended Springdale Junior School and was then educated at home from the age of 11, having attended secondary school for only three weeks. She and her siblings received no proper formal education from their parents; the local council allowed them to do so, as they were "the only hippies in Wolverhampton". The children frequently occupied their time with simple games, such as throwing mud at their house. Moran describes her childhood as happy, but revealed she left home as soon as she was able to do so at age 18.

Moran was convinced throughout her teenage years that she would become a writer. At the age of 13 in October 1988 she won a Dillons young readers' contest for an essay on Why I Like Books and was awarded £250 of book tokens. At the age of 15, she won The Observer's Young Reporter of the Year. She began her career as a journalist for Melody Maker, the weekly music publication, at the age of 16. Moran also wrote a novel called The Chronicles of Narmo at the age of 16, inspired by having been part of a home-schooled family.