Who is writer Kiran Millwood Hargrave?

That was closely followed by the ambition to be a cat-owner, or the first woman on Mars. To date, she has only achieved one of these ambitions, but in fairness she has had a particularly busy last decade.

After publishing her first children’s book at the age of just 26, Millwood Hargrave has gone on to add nine further titles to her personal bibliography, securing a host of awards along the way. So chances are, if you’ve spent any of the last ten years as either a reader or a child (or both!) then you’ll already be familiar with Kiran Millwood Hargrave, but if you’re not, you should definitely read on.

She didn’t always want to be an author

Though she had always been a lover of fiction, it wasn’t until she was in her early twenties that Millwood Hargrave really began to entertain the idea of becoming a writer. Following her father’s advice of ‘it’s easy to fail at what you don’t want to do, so you might as well fail at something you do want to do’, and having seen her partner (now husband), progress in his own career as an artist, she changed tack, ditching plans to study law and instead enrolling in a creative writing Masters at Oxford University.

She began her writing life as a poet

At that point Millwood Hargrave had already begun writing for publication, but hadn’t yet turned her hand to fiction. Instead she initially wrote poetry, publishing the pamphlet Scavengers in 2011, followed by three further collections; Last March, Wide Shining and Splitfish. Her poetry has appeared in journals including Magma, Room, The Irish Literary Review and Orbis, and her poem ‘Grace’ from Splitfish won a Yeovil International Poetry Prize in 2013

Now she’s a professional liar

Ok, that’s a bit strong, but it’s straight from the author’s mouth. Speaking as part of a video series to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Hay Festival in 2017, Millwood Hargrave explained that one of the biggest draws for her in terms of becoming a writer was that it enables her to make stuff up for a living.

…and a playwright

In 2015 Millwood Hargrave’s debut play BOAT was brought to the stage at Theatre N16 in Balham, South London by PIGDOG Theatre Company and the live sound artist/composer Jethro Cooke. Documenting the realities of human trafficking, BOAT grapples with the experiences of a young girl uprooted from her homeland who is only able to find means of escape through fantasy.

Her debut book was published to huge acclaim

In fact it was already making waves before publication. The Girl of Ink and Stars, or The Cartographer’s Daughter as it was published in the US, was bought as part of a two-book deal by publishers Knopf Random House (US), and Chicken House Scholastic (rest-of-world) for a reported six-figure fee. When the book was published in 2016 the accolades kept coming for the then still just 26-year-old author, as it went on to win the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year in 2017.

But writing it hadn’t been a smooth journey

In a piece for Waterstones’ website in 2016 Millwood Hargrave explained that when she began writing The Girl of Ink and Stars she’d been clinically depressed for about three years. ‘I was just starting to claw my way out, but still spent most of my days under the covers, curtains drawn, convincing myself that this was rest, and that rest was self-care… so I began writing Isabella’s story in bed… she saved a part of me from the darkness I’d lived in for years.’ The book also came from a significant place of trepidation, as the author explained in that same piece; ‘ I was scared to take the leap of faith that writing a book always is. It took about two months, and 20,000 words, to admit to anyone other than my partner that I was writing a novel… it was the hardest and most wonderful thing I’ve ever done’.

Her list of favourite writers is extensive

On her own website Millwood Hargrave admits that attempting to list all the authors she loves ‘could quickly become ungovernable’, but is able to pick out a number of whom she will ‘read anything they wrote’. The names to meet this strict categorisation include Philip Pullman, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Malorie Blackman, Jon McGregor, Bapsi Sidwa, JK Rowling, Roald Dahl, Garth Nix, Eva Ibbotson, Diana Wynne Jones, Jeanette Winterson and Joan Aiken.

She’s followed The Girl of Ink and Stars with six further books for children

Among them are 2017’s The Island at the End of Everything – the follow up to Millwood Hargrave’s bestselling debut – which was shortlisted for a trio of awards; the Costa Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Jhalak Prize. Her third book The Way Past Winter was crowned Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Year in 2018, whilst 2021’s Julia and the Shark won Millwood Hargrave Waterstones Gift of the Year as well as making the Waterstones Book of the Year shortlist. Her most recent children’s book In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen, the first in The Geomancer Trilogy, brought Millwood Hargrave to the Southbank Centre in October 2024 to discuss it as part of our London Literature Festival.

And has also written two successful novels for adults

In 2018 Millwood Hargrave saw a reproduction of Louise Bourgeois’ installation piece ‘The Damned, the Possessed and the Beloved’ which commemorates the 1621 execution of 91 people for witchcraft on the Norwegian island of Vardø. The quest to find the story behind the story behind the work would lead her to write her first book for adults, The Mercies, which takes its inspiration from those Vardø witch trials. The subject of a 13-way bidding war between publishers, The Merices was ultimately printed by Picador, and as well as becoming a huge bestseller it also earned Millwood Hargrave a Betty Trask Award as well as the Prix Rive Gauche à Paris.

Her most frequent collaborator is her husband, artist Tom de Freston

The pair even met through a collaboration, working together on a mutual friend’s play whilst at university. And they’ve collaborated ever since, on works including Scavengers for which de Freston provided accompanying paintings, and on the much celebrated Julia and the Shark which de Freston beautifully illustrated. Although their most notable collaboration landed in 2023 when the couple’s daughter Coral was born. The trio are yet to make it to Mars.

 

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