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50 years at the cutting edge of poetry publishing

“A meeting point for poets of all latitudes”
— Víctor Rodríguez Núñez

Julia Darling UK

Julia Darling lived in Newcastle upon Tyne from 1980 until her death in April 2005, and began her writing career as a poet, working with a performance group 'The Poetry Virgins' for many years, taking poetry to the places that least expected it.

In 1988 her first novel Crocodile Soup was published by Anchor at Transworld. The novel went on to be published in Canada, Australia, Europe and the United States and was long-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, The Taxi Driver's Daughter, was published by Penguin, and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and short-listed for the Encore Award. She also wrote many plays for stage and radio, including a linked series of plays under the collective title Appointments which were broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour shortly before her death, and the stage play Manifesto for the New City for Northern Stage.

In 2003, Julia Darling's first full-length collection of poems, Sudden Collapses in Public Places, was published by Arc and was awarded a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. In November 2004, her follow-up to Sudden Collapses, Apology for Absence, was launched at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle at what Julia described as a night I shall always remember.

From 2000-2004, Julia was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newcastle University and in March 2003 she became the second winner of the UK's biggest literary prize, the £60,000 Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award. During January 2005, she was the third Poet in Residence at Guardian Unlimited. At the time of her death, she was still revising her novel The Cure for Dying, the successor to The Taxi Driver's Daughter.

For detailed information about Julia Darling - the person, the writer and the performer - visit the website created for her and maintained by Roger Cornwall / Cornwall Internet.

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