22 Facts About Anthony McGowan

Anthony John McGowan was born on January 1965 and is an English author of books for children, teenagers and adults.

Anthony McGowan is the winner of the 2020 CILIP Carnegie Medal for Lark.

Anthony McGowan's parents were both nurses and his family moved to the village of Sherburn in Elmet, outside Leeds, when he was a small child.

Anthony McGowan wrote his first book, the gory and violent Abandon Hope, while working as a civil servant, but it was rejected by every publisher to which he sent it.

Anthony McGowan turned to writing books for a teenage audience and soon found success.

Anthony McGowan rewrote his first, unpublished book, Abandon Hope, to make it appropriate for teens by taking out some of the more explicit parts and re-titled it Hellbent.

Anthony McGowan went on to win the 2006 Booktrust Teenage Prize with his next young adult book, Henry Tumour, about a boy whose brain tumor won't stop talking to him.

Anthony McGowan modeled the relationship of Henry and his tumor on that of Falstaff and young Hal in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1.

Anthony McGowan writes books for Barrington Stoke, which specializes in short books with simple language for dyslexic and reluctant readers.

Anthony McGowan continued writing for Barrington Stoke with four novellas in The Truth of Things series about northern working-class brothers Nicky and Kenny, the older of whom is learning disabled, who deal with a troubled home life and other challenges.

Anthony McGowan creates characters whose background is too little represented in fiction for young people, and he makes us know them and live their experience as if we were there.

Anthony McGowan collaborated with author Joanna Nadin on the book Everybody Hurts, a love story between two teenagers of different social classes.

In 2008, Anthony McGowan published his first book for middle readers, Einstein's Underpants and How They Saved the World.

Anthony McGowan penned approximately twenty of the titles in the series, which contains continuous adventure stories with a single set of main characters to take readers through the primary school years.

In 2011, it was announced that Anthony McGowan had been contracted to write four books that would revive the classic children's wildlife adventure series penned between 1949 and 1980 by the late Willard Price.

In How to Teach Philosophy to Your Dog: A Quirky Introduction to the Big Questions in Philosophy, Anthony McGowan utilized his PhD in philosophy in examining the teachings of history's most renowned philosophers, which he presented in a series of 'conversations' between himself and his dog, Monty.

Anthony McGowan has lectured on creative writing at London Metropolitan University, Royal Holloway, University of London, and The Faber Academy.

Anthony McGowan is married to novelist and London School of Economics academic Rebecca Campbell.

Anthony McGowan was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1986 at the age of 21 and told his chance of survival was a percentage "in the low teens".

Anthony McGowan wrote an article for Wisden Cricket Monthly in 2019 about how listening to the Ashes cricket series on the radio helped get him through the ordeal.

Anthony McGowan plays for the Authors Cricket Club with a number of other British writers.

Anthony McGowan contributed a chapter on social class divisions and the game of cricket to the book that team members collectively wrote to commemorate their first season of playing together, The Authors XI: A Season of English Cricket from Hackney to Hambledon.