Patricia Craig (writer) explained

Patricia Craig (born 1940s) is a writer, anthologist and literary critic from Northern Ireland, living in Antrim, County Antrim.

Personal life

She was born in Belfast to Nora (née Brady) and Andy Craig and attended St Dominic's Grammar School for Girls^[1] before studying at the Belfast School of Art and then at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London (where she obtained a Diploma in Art & Design, Hons.). She returned to Northern Ireland in 1999.^[2] She is married to the Welsh artist Jeffrey Morgan.^[2]

Career

In the late 1960s, Craig was at Notre Dame Convent School in Battersea, working as an art mistress, but longed to have a literary career. Since then, she has written memoirs, edited several anthologies and written articles for newspapers.^[3] In London she began to collaborate with Mary Cadogan, editing several books on children's literature. Their first book, You’re a Brick Angela!, became a classic.^[4]

On her return to Northern Ireland, she began to write books with an Irish theme. One of the first was a biography of Brian Moore which was described by the critic Seamus Deane as 'a crisp and intelligent account of a man and a writer for whom Craig's clean and incisive approach seems perfectly appropriate'. Perhaps her most popular book was the memoir Asking for Trouble (1987) which details her schooldays, culminating in her expulsion from school.^[1]

Awards

She was Honorary Lecturer at Queen's University Belfast where she was appointed to the Board of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry.^{[5] [3]}

Publications

• You're a Brick Angela!: The Girls' Story 1839–1985 (1976)
• Women and Children First: The Fiction of Two World Wars (1978)
• The Lady Investigates: Women Detectives and Spies in Fiction (1986)
• The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories (1990)
• The Rattle of The North: An Anthology of Ulster Prose (1992)
• The Penguin Book of British Comic Stories (1992)
• The Oxford Book of Modern Women's Stories (1994)
• The Oxford Book of Schooldays (1995)
• The Oxford Book of Travel Stories (1996)
• The Oxford Book of Ireland (1998)
• Twelve Irish Ghost Stories (1998)
• The Belfast Anthology (1999)
• The Oxford Book of Detective Stories (2000)
• Brian Moore: A Biography (2002)^[6]
• Asking for Trouble (2008)^[1]
• A Twisted Root – Ancestral Entanglements in Ireland (2012)^[7]
• Bookworm, A Memoir of Childhood Reading (2015)

External links

• Patricia Craig's articles and book reviews in The Independent

Notes and References

1. News: O'Doherty . Malachi . Malachi O'Doherty. Asking for Trouble, by Patricia Craig . https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220525/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/asking-for-trouble-by-patricia-craig-768871.html . 25 May 2022 . subscription . live . 8 January 2008 . . 19 April 2020.
2. News: Patricia: A literary childhood brought to book. Belfast Telegraph. Brankin, Una. 13 November 2015. 1 March 2017.
3. Web site: Dr Patricia Craig. 2 March 2017.
4. News: Mary Cadogan Obituary. The Guardian. Sibley, Brian. Brian Sibley. 6 October 2014. 11 November 2020.
5. Web site: Queen's University Belfast – The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. 10 April 2019 .
6. News: Deane . Seamus . War and peace . 14 December 2002 . . 19 April 2020.
7. News: Elliott . Marianne . Who do you think you are? . 2 February 2013 . . 19 April 2020.