“Ashdown’s storytelling skills are formidable; her human insights highly perceptive.” Mail on Sunday
Author portrait: Kelly Hill Photography , 2010
Isabel Ashdown was born in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1970 and grew up on the south-east coast of England, where she continues to live and work, along with her carpenter husband and two children. For 15 years she worked in product marketing, during which time she travelled through Europe, Thailand, Indonesia and the United States.
In her thirties, she gave up her senior management role to write whilst studying English & Creative Writing at the University of Chichester from where she graduated with a first class honours degree in Creative Writing, and received the Hugo Donnelly Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement.
An early extract from her debut novel, Glasshopper, won the 2008 Mail on Sunday Novel Competition, with judges Fay Weldon and Sir John Mortimer describing Ashdown’s writing as “magnificent”. Glasshopper was published by Myriad Editions in September 2009, and was recently named as one of the ‘Best Books of 2009′ in both the London Evening Standard and the Observer Review.
She was recently awarded MA in Creative Writing with Distinction, for extracts from her second novel, Hurry Up & Wait, which will be released in Spring 2011.
Isabel is also the founder of Chichester Book Club, a website dedicated to reading groups and book clubs in her local area.
To buy Glasshopper, click here.
To view Glasshopper Book Club & Reading Group Discussion Questions, click here.
