Catherine O’Flynn is a novelist for adults and children. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novels: What Was Lost; The News Where You Are and Mr Lynch’s Holiday. Her writing has received various awards including the Costa First Novel Award and the Guildford Arts Book Prize, and her books have been listed for the Booker, the Orange and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. Catherine’s work has been published in over twenty countries and she was named Waterstones Newcomer of the Year at the 2008 British Book Awards. Her short stories and articles have featured in Granta, the New York Times and on BBC Radio 4.
Catherine’s Lori and Max novels for children, based on her own experiences as a child detective, have been shortlisted for Blue Peter and UKLA book awards.
Catherine is a campaigner for public libraries and in 2024, together with the poet Liz Berry, launched the Brum Library Zine project.
Catherine, the youngest of six children, was born in Birmingham to Irish parents and grew up in the family’s sweetshop. She has been described as ‘the J. G. Ballard of Birmingham . . . finding poetry and meaning where others see merely boredom and dereliction’.
