Katherine Woodfine

Katherine Woodfine (born 1983) is a British children's author, known for The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow.

Personal life

Katherine Woodfine was born in Lancashire in 1983. She studied English at Bristol University and in 2005 she was highly commended in Vogue magazine’s annual Talent Competition for young writers. Woodfine lives and works in London.

Career

Woodfine's first job was working in a bookshop (Waterstones Lancaster) and since then almost everything she has been connected with books. Since then she has worked for Blackwell’s bookshop in Bristol, and managed the bookshop and gallery at Cornerhouse, Manchester’s international centre for visual arts and film. She also worked for Arts Council England’s North West office, specialising in literature.

Katherine Woodfine is currently Arts Project Manager at Booktrust, the UK’s most prominent reading and writing charity. She is a true champion of children’s literature and throughout her time at Booktrust has project-managed the Children's Laureateship and worked on a huge range of other children's book prizes and initiatives, including YALC 2014, the UK’s first Young Adult Literature Convention, curated by Malorie Blackman. She has reviewed and recommended children’s titles online, in print and on the radio as part of the founding team at Down the Rabbit Hole, a monthly show for Resonance FM discussing children’s literature.

Writing

Katherine Woodfine writes a blog, Follow the Yellow, and her work has been published by Flax Books in the anthology Mostly Truthful. She is also contributing to Mystery & Mayhem by Egmont Books, publishing in May 2016 along with 11 other authors including Clementine Beauvais, Elen Caldecott, Susie Day, Julia Golding, Frances Hardinge, Caroline Lawrence, Helen Moss, Sally Nicholls, Kate Pankhurst, Robin Stevens and Harriet Whitehorn.