Alex Preston

Alex Preston (born 1979) is a British author and journalist.

Early life

Preston was born on 18 January 1979, in the seaside town of Worthing in West Sussex, in Southern England.

Education

Preston was educated at Sompting Abbotts Preparatory School, from where he won a scholarship[1] to Lancing College, a boarding independent school on the South Downs, near the village of Lancing in West Sussex, followed by Hertford College at the University of Oxford.[2] He received his PhD in English Literature from UCL.[3]

Life and career

Preston's first novel, This Bleeding City, was published by Faber and Faber in March 2010.[4] The novel won the Spear's Best First Novel Prize,[5] the Edinburgh International Book Festival Readers' First Book Award,[6] and was chosen as one of Waterstone's New Voices 2010.[7] It has been translated into twelve languages.[8] His second novel, The Revelations was published in February 2012, while his third, In Love and War, was featured on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime. He is also the author of As Kingfishers Catch Fire, a memoir and anthology of literature about British birds.[9] Preston reviews books for a number of national newspapers and magazines and is a regular panelist on BBC2's The Review Show.[8] Alex Preston is the brother of Samuel Preston, the former singer of The Ordinary Boys and Celebrity Big Brother contestant. He is the grandson of Princeton University English professor and literary critic, Samuel Hynes.[10][11]

Preston appears for the Authors Cricket Club. He became notable as player-umpire for asking of fellow novelist Richard Beard, "Do you think you were out?" to a bellowed LBW appeal. For this he received the "Decision of the Season" award at their annual dinner.[12]

References

  1. ↑ Preston, Alex. Sompting Abbotts Preparatory School https://www.somptingabbotts.com/blog/i-hope-my-children-will-be-as-happy-as-i-was-at-sompting-abbotts. Retrieved 16 October 2017. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ↑ "About | Alex Preston". Alexhmpreston.com. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  3. ↑ "Dr Alex Preston - School of English - University of Kent". www.kent.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-13.
  4. ↑ "Faber & Faber : Alex Preston". Faber.co.uk. 30 March 2010. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  5. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20100602220537/http://www.spearswms.com/good-life/books/19077/spears-book-awards-2010-shortlist.thtml. Archived from the original on 2 June 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2010. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. ↑ "2010 Readers' First Book Award winner announced". Edinburgh International Book Festival. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  7. ↑ "Fiction, Children's books, eBooks, Non-fiction books, textbooks and more at Waterstone's". Waterstone's. 15 December 2005. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  8. 1 2 "About | Alex Preston". Alexhmpreston.com. Retrieved 2014-08-06.
  9. ↑ Alex Preston and Neil Gower - As Kingfishers Catch Fire - Little, Brown Book Group.
  10. ↑ Carole Cadwalladr (19 July 2009). "Interview with Preston, former singer with the Ordinary Boys and now launching a solo career". The Observer. UK. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  11. ↑ "Fifteen minutes with Samuel Preston, singer_guitarist_songwriter with The Ordinary Boys and fan of Morrissey". Julie Hamill. February 20, 2013. Retrieved 7 June 2014.
  12. ↑ Hogg, Nicholas (June 5, 2014). "Who would be a player-umpire?". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 7 June 2014.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.