Lucy Caldwell (born 1981) is a Northern Irish playwright and novelist. She was the winner of the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award and of the 2023 Walter Scott Prize.
Early life and education Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981.
She studied at Strathearn School and later at Queens' College, Cambridge, graduating with a first-class degree, and Goldsmiths, University of London.
Career In June 2004, Caldwell's first short play, The River, was performed at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, and subsequently the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The play won her the PMA Most Promising Playwright Award. Caldwell spent time as writer-on-attachment to the National Theatre in 2005. Her first full-length play, Leaves, won the 2006 George Devine Award, the 2007 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and the Stewart Parker Award. In 2007 it was produced by the Druid Theatre Company, and directed by Garry Hynes. The play premiered in Galway before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre.
Her second full-length play, Guardians, premiered at the 2009 HighTide Festival in Halesworth. Reviewing the production, critic Michael Billington wrote: "[Caldwell] writes with real power about lost love. I was much moved." Notes to Future Self was produced at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in March 2011, directed by Rachel Kavanaugh. It was described in The Stage as "Brave, beautiful, and quite extraordinary".
Radio plays Caldwell's radio play, Girl from Mars, broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in 2008, won the Irish Playwrights' and Screenwriters' Guild Award ("ZeBBie") for Best Radio Play and the BBC's Richard Imison Award for best script by a writer new to radio. In their verdict, the judges said:"This is a gripping and powerful depiction of the effect on a family when one sibling goes missing. The beautifully-told story begins when a body is found and the remaining daughter returns to be with her family while they await identification. Girl From Mars is moving and emotionally taut. It veers away from sentimentality and felt personal and believable. The structure is complex – combining three different timescales – and uses radio to its full potential, using many techniques including voice-overs, dialogue, text messages, and voice mail. The story has a shades-of-grey resolution about the way a person's life can tragically stop short – and this is echoed in the subtle way the writer ends her own play too."
Novels and other fiction Caldwell's first novel, Where They Were Missed, set in Belfast and County Donegal, was published in February 2006 by Faber & Faber and short-listed for the 2006 Dylan Thomas Prize. It was described by Vogue as "a debut reminiscent of Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden and Trezza Azzopardi's The Hiding Place.
Caldwell's second novel, The Meeting Point, centred on a young Irish missionary couple who journey to Bahrain, was published in February 2011. It was described by the Sunday Times as "Compelling, passionate and deeply resonant", and by The Guardian as "haunting... compulsively readable".
Caldwell won the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award for "All the People Were Mean and Bad".
In 2022, Caldwell published These Days, a fictionalised account of the Belfast Blitz, revolving around the lives of two sisters.
Awards and honours
2006: George Devine Award for Leaves 2007: Susan Smith Blackburn Award for Leaves 2009: Irish Playwrights' and Screenwriters' Guild Award for Girl from Mars 2009: Richard Imison Award for Girl From Mars 2011: Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. 2011: Dylan Thomas Prize for The Meeting Point 2012: Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland 2013: Shortlisted, Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award for All the Beggars Riding 2013: Fiction Uncovered selection, All the Beggars Riding 2013: All the Beggars Riding chosen as Belfast's One City One Book 2014: Commonwealth Writers’ Award (Canada and Europe) 2018: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative. 2021: BBC National Short Story Award for "All the People Were Mean and Bad". 2022: E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 2023: Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction, for These Days
Selected works Novels Where They Were Missed (Faber, 2005) , The Meeting Point (Faber, 2011) , All the Beggars Riding (Faber, 2013) , These Days (Faber, 2022)
Short Story Collections Multitudes: Eleven Stories (Faber, 2016) , Intimacies (Faber, 2021) Openings: Thirteen Stories (Faber, 2024) Devotions: Eight Stories (Faber, 2026)
Stage plays Leaves (2007) , ; Chapel Lane, Galway, transferring to the Royal Court (Upstairs), London Carnival (2008) produced by Kabosh at Edinburgh Festival Spiegeltent Guardians (2009) The Luthier (2009) Origin Theatre Company as part of the New York 1st Irish Festival Notes to Future Self (2011) at Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company Hier Soir, Demain Soir (2012), commissioned by the Comédie de Valence, for Festival Ambivalence(s)
Radio plays Girl from Mars (2008) BBC Radio 4 Avenues of Eternal Peace (2009) BBC Radio 4 The Watcher on the Wall (2013) BBC Radio 4 At Sea (2024) BBC Radio 4
References
External links
David Evans, "Paperback review: All the Beggars Riding, By Lucy Caldwell", The Independent, 16 March 2013. Boyd Tonkin, "One Minute With: Lucy Caldwell", The Independent, 1 February 2013. Freya McClelland, "The Meeting Point, By Lucy Caldwell", The Independent, 11 February 2011.