Tessa Hadley

Tessa Jane Hadley FRSL (born 28 February 1956; née Nichols) is a British author of novels, short stories and non-fiction. Her writing is realistic and often focuses on family relationships. Her novels have twice reached the longlists of the Orange Prize and the Wales Book of the Year, and in 2016, she won one of the Windham–Campbell Literature Prizes for fiction. The Windham–Campbell judges describe her as "one of English's finest contemporary writers" and state that her writing "brilliantly illuminates ordinary lives with extraordinary prose that is superbly controlled, psychologically acute, and subtly powerful." As of 2016, she is professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University.

Born in Bristol in 1956, her father Geoff Nichols was a teacher and amateur jazz trumpeter, and her mother Mary an amateur artist. Her father's brother is the playwright Peter Nichols. She gained a BA in English (1978) followed by a PGCE at Clare College, University of Cambridge, and briefly taught at a comprehensive school before starting a family. In 1982 she married Eric Hadley, a teacher, lecturer and playwright, and they moved to Cardiff, where Eric Hadley taught at Cardiff University and the University of Wales Institute. The couple have three sons together, as well as three stepsons. During this period, Hadley completed several novels but failed to find a publisher, and also co-authored two collections of short stories for children with her husband.

In 1993, when she was in her late thirties, Hadley studied for an MA in creative writing at the Bath Spa University College, which she was awarded in 1994, and gained a PhD at the University of the West of England in 1998; her PhD thesis is entitled "Pleasure and propriety in Henry James." She started to teach creative writing at Bath Spa University in 1997; as of 2016, she is professor of creative writing at the university. Her first published novel, Accidents in the Home, written while bringing up her family, appeared in 2002 when she was 46. Her continued study of the author Henry James has resulted in a book, as well as several research and conference papers. She researches and teaches on James and Jane Austen, as well as early 20th century novelists and short-story writers, especially women, including Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Mansfield and Jean Rhys.

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