Simon Mason

Background

Simon Mason was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, on 5 February 1962. Martha is used to managing her father"s sometimes erratic behaviour after her mother dies.

Education

He was educated at local schools and studied English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

Career

Mason"s 2011 novel, Moon Pie, published by David Fickling Books was short-listed for the Guardian Prize. Julia Eccleshare, chair of the Guardian Prize judging panel, said: "How love is tested, challenged and threatened, but can ultimately hold families together is at the heart of Moon Pie. But finally, even for her, it is all just a bit too much.

This is a beautifully told story that is long on affection and short on preaching."

In 2002, Mason wrote the children"s series The Quigleys, about a spirited and lovable family.

The Quigleys, 2002

Review, Hornbook Magazine July 1, 2002

The Quigleys Not for Sale, 2004

The Quigleys At Large. 2004.,Review, Washington Post, March 7, 2004

Review Hornbook Magazine, September 1, 2003

The Quigleys in a SpinReview, Hornbook Magazine, March 1, 2006

Review, Toronto Star, June 11, 2006

In 2014, he wrote the young adult murder mystery novel, Running Girl.

The Great English Nude was published in the United States as Portrait of the Artist with My Wife. Death of a Fantasist was published by Constable in 1994.

lieutenant was described by The Independent as "inevitably reminiscent of Martin Amis.

Its well-crafted comedy gets blacker and blacker until suddenly the reader finds the balance has shifted: there is real menace in the air."

Lives of the Dog-Stranglers was published by Vintage in 1999. lieutenant is described as "Like any suburb in the south of England, Parkside"s character is formed by rumour and fantasy and everyone is the figment of his neighbour"s imagination: "We"re anything they want us to be - murderers, redheads, philanderers, dog-stranglers." This is an elegant, savage farce of suburbia."

He is the author of The Rough Guide to Classic Novels, in the Rough Guides series, published in 2003. Author Kate Mosse is quoted as saying ".. it reads like a novel and it"s partly because Simon is a really great writer

The thing that distinguishes Simon"s book from the other guides that there have been in this area is he has squarely said it cannot be a classic if it"s not entertaining".

Achievements

• The Quigleys marked the start of a series featuring the eccentric Quigley family and was short-listed for the Branford Boase Award in 2003. The Great English Nude, published by Constable in 1990, won a £2,000 Betty Trask Award in 1991 for first novels written by authors under the age of 35 in a romantic or traditional, but not experimental, style. lieutenant is described as "a consummate demonstration that it is possible to celebrate the finest achievements of the human race in the arts and humanities without couching them in forbidding academic language".