Tim Lott's Biography

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Tim Lott was born on January 23, 1956 in Southall, West London, the son of a Notting Hill greengrocer.

Tim left Mentorn in 1989 to work as a feature writer on The Sunday Correspondent, a newspaper that had been born the same year. It went out of business in 1990, and Tim, once more without a job, began to work on his first novel, 'Bad Knowledge'. It did not find a publisher, but one agent, David Godwin, who noticed an article in Esquire Tim had written about his mother's depression, suggested he write a book about his experience during that time.

The result was 'The Scent of Dried Roses' which was published by Penguin in 1996, and received universal acclaim. A memoir partly about depression, but mainly a personal social history of life and death in suburban working class England, it was hailed by critics such as Frank Kermode, Blake Morrison and Ruth Rendell. It was short listed for a number of prizes and won the PEN/JR Ackerley Prize for Autobiography in 1997.

Tim now signed a contract with Penguin Books to produce a 'new journalism' account of the 1997 Labour bid for power under Tony Blair. However, after six months of knocking on doors, and being rebuffed by Labour's formidable press machine, the project was abandoned.

Owing a book to his publishers, Penguin. He decided to write a novel about the 'politics of friendship'. 'White City Blue (1999)'. The book won the Whitbread First Novel Award.

The next novel was 'Rumours of a Hurricane' an account of the Thatcher years seen through the eyes of Charlie Buck, a middle aged printer at Rupert Murdoch's print works. Published in 2002, the book was short listed for the Encore Award and the Whitbread Novel award.

During this time, Tim's personal life was going through difficulties, and he divorced from his wife, Sarina Lavigna, in 2001. They had two children together, Ruby and Cecilia.

Inspired by his children, Tim at around this time (2000) wrote a children's novel, The Sad and Somewhat Strange Story of Sadie Strongheart. It would be six more years before it was ready to be published.

In 2003, clearly affected by the break up of his marriage, Tim wrote 'The Love Secrets of Don Juan', an account of a middle aged advertising executive's' attempt to survive divorce and fall in love again.

In 2003 Tim was appointed president of the Prince Maurice Prize for Literary Love Stories, which is held in Mauritius every two years.

Tim published 'The Seymour Tapes' in 2005, the story of a man obsessed by covertly surveilling his family. It was subject to a bidding war for TV and film rights and was sold to World Productions for Channel Four early last year. By now Tim had resigned his job on the Evening Standard, and was concentrating on TV, adapting 'The Seymour Tapes' himself and developing a new comedy drama, 'The Rough Guide to Doing Nothing' for Tiger Aspect and the BBC.

In 2005 'The Strange and Somewhat Sad Story of Sadie Strongheart' was purchased by Walker Books under the new title, 'Fearless'. After extensive rewriting, it is to be published in June 2007 - seven years after the first draft was completed.

Click here to read full biography of Tim Lott in his website