Emma Darwin is the
great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin (and therefore Josiah Wedgwood’s
great-great-great-granddaughter – ed). However, it is not this fact alone that
has led to her winning a 2-book deal with Hodder Headline. No, she won this
contract due to her talent, and in a manner that her great-great-grandfather
would have approved of. In 2004, she came 3rd in the Bridport Prize, probably the UK’s toughest
writing competition (and was also longlisted in 2005). She has also studied for
an MPhil in Creative Writing at
the University of Glamorgan (which looks to be a very good course, judging from
the success of its graduates). Emma Darwin is also currently an active
participant at Writewords.org.uk (another institution that looks to be doing
good stuff for fledgling writers). Her novel, “The
Mathematics of Love”, was written in the first year of her MPhil. Emma
Darwin has also written a collection of short stories: “The Other Eleanor”,
featuring “Respectability” (online at Writewords.org.uk), and “Maura’s Arm”
(her successful Bridport entry). Emma Darwin was born and brought up in London,
where she was educated at St. Paul’s Girls’ School. Her mother is an English
teacher, and her father worked as a lawyer in the Foreign Office. This meant
that the family spent several years living in Manhattan, and would later
commute between London and Brussels. This kind of lifestyle, the crossing of
borders and cultures, the encountering of new words and languages, does seem to
stimulate the writerly imagination, as I’ve come across so many prominent
authors with similar backgrounds. Emma’s family holidays on the Essex/Suffolk
border have worked their way into “The Mathematics of Love”. Although Emma did
write stories as a child, history was her passion. This passion influenced her reading (and no doubt the
settings of her own novels), as she read authors such as Geoffrey Trease, Mary
Renault, and Penelope Farmer. As a teenager, Emma became more interested in
theatre, and this led her to read Drama at Birmingham University. Her
dissertation was on play publishing, and this led her to realising a career in
academic publishing. Emma Darwin also has a great interest in photography, and
this interest distracted her a little from writing at this time, as she
acquired her first dark room (it’s probably not a coincidence that her
great-great-great grandfather, Tom Wedgwood, was a pioneer of photography).
Emma is now working on a PhD in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths’ College,
University of London, where she will labour on her new work-in-progress, titled
“A Polished Lamp”. She now lives in London with her teenage children. “The
Mathematics of Love” will be published in the UK by Headline Review in July
2006, and by William Morrow in the US in 2007. She looks set to eclipse her
great-great-grandmother as being the most famous Emma Darwin.
Emma Darwin homepage – Emma’s site has
extracts from “The
Mathematics of Love” and her Bridport story “Maura’s
Arm”, along with all the latest news about her and her work
Respectability – a
short story available online at Writewords.org.uk.
You have to subscribe to read the story, but I think subscription is very
worthwhile for this excellent site aimed at helping new writers
Emma Darwin interview – from www.writewords.org.uk
