Jill Dawson

Jill Dawson is an award-winning poet and the author of several novels, including Fred and Edie, which was short-listed for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize, and Lucky Bunny.

From her Q & A at the Guardian:

How did you come to write Lucky Bunny?

I've long been interested in writing about the appeal of risk-taking, destructive behaviours such as relationships with dangerous men. When I was living in Hackney about 20 years ago, before I'd published my first novel, I tore something out of the Guardian about a traffic-stopping funeral that had gone through London of a major woman thief. She'd had condolences from the Krays and one of the great train robbers attended in person. I then read The Profession of Violence – the biography of the Kray twins by John Pearson – and lots of other books about London's underworld. They rarely mentioned the women, except to say things like (describing a terribly bloody murder in Stoke Newington) "a blonde cleaned up the place". So I started to think about women who belonged to this criminal underworld and what their role might be.

What was most difficult about it?

I wanted to write a novel that read like a convincing memoir by a criminal – a boastful romp – and at the same time, underneath, was something else.

What did you most enjoy?

I loved, as I always do, reading...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue