Lesley Thomson studied at the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex. Her first novel, Seven Miles from Sydney ("Compelling" Times on Sunday; "Bold and imaginative" Time Out; "Such an interesting novel" Guardian) is a crime thriller set in Australia. She also co-wrote actress Sue Johnston's autobiography Hold on to the Messy Times. Lesley’s second novel A Kind of Vanishing was published in 2007 to critical acclaim, and won the People’s Book Prize for Fiction in 2010.
She has worked as a journalist, photographer, ghost-writer and is currently an associate tutor on Greg Mosse’s Creative Writing MA at West Dean College near Chichester and guest lectures at Northbrook College and the University of Sussex.
Originally a Londoner, she now lives in Lewes, East Sussex with her partner.She is working on her latest novel in between long walks over the South Downs.
Visit Lesley Thomson's website.
Several books groups have invited Lesley Thomson to join them to discuss her novel.
If you'd be interested in asking Lesley to visit your book group, please contact Vicky Blunden.
'I am an only child, but for one year, when I was seven, I had a brother. David, also an only child, was three months older than me. I first met him when he visited with his father in the spring of that year. I was impressed by my uncle's good looks, conflating him with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. His son – my cousin – sat on our sagging green settee, done up in a grey school uniform although it was the weekend, his socks tightly pulled up to his knees. My school did not have a uniform, and none of the boys I knew could have kept so still...'
Lesley Thomson writes in the Guardian about how being an only child has shaped her career as a writer.
