Anthony McGowan

Anthony McGowan is an English author of books for children, teenagers, and adults. He won the CILIP Carnegie Medal for Lark, book four in The Truth of Things series.

Anthony John McGowan was born in Manchester and raised in Leeds. He holds an M.Phil in philosophy and a Ph.D. focused on the history of the concept of beauty.

Before becoming a full-time writer, McGowan has taken on roles ranging from a nightclub bouncer to a civil servant and even served as an Open University tutor in philosophy.

Anthony McGowan debuted with the adult thriller Stag Hunt (2004), which has received widespread critical acclaim. Following this success, he followed up with the sequel Mortal Coil in 2005. In the same year, he ventured into young adult fiction with Hellbent, which earned praise from The Times as "a brilliantly nauseating thriller" and was selected by Anthony Horowitz as his book of the year in the Daily Telegraph.

In 2006, Anthony published his second young-adult book, Henry Tumour. The Guardian described it as "a boisterous, anarchic, frequently vulgar comedy about a boy with a brain tumor," which delves into profound themes. Henry Tumour claimed the 2006 Booktrust Teenage Prize and the 2007 Catalyst Award and received nominations for several prestigious literary awards.

In 2008, he released The Knife That Killed Me, which tackled the pressing issues of knife crime and youth violence with intense realism, generating controversy and relevance. Esteemed author Meg Rosoff praised Anthony's work, remarking, "Every writer hates to hear the words 'stunning new talent' applied to someone else, but in the case of Anthony McGowan, nothing else will do." This compelling novel was later adapted into a film, premiering in July 2014.

His repertoire includes Hello Darkness (2013) and the Brock/Pike/Rook/Lark quartet, which he penned for Barrington Stoke between 2013 and 2019. Rook from this series earned a spot on the shortlist for the CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2018.

Beyond his novels, Anthony is also the author of The Art of Failing, a humorous reflection on the writer's life, published by Oneworld in 2017. In 2019, he released How to Teach Philosophy to Your Dog, an engaging introduction to philosophy.

Anthony McGowan has also written feature articles for The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times, and the Evening Standard, on subjects ranging from the nightmare of being a relative failure married to a superwoman, to travel, and the dangers of hunting rats with a crossbow.

McGowan is married to Rebecca Campbell, a fashion designer and academic at LSE. They have two children and a beloved canine companion named Monty, who appears in two of his literary works: The Art of Failing (2017) and How to Teach Philosophy to Your Dog (2019).

Anthony McGowan currently resides in London.

Photo credit: anthonymcgowan.com
years of life: 1 January 1965 present
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