Nicola Garrard

Nicola Garrard’s first novel, 29 Locks (HopeRoad, 2021), was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and the Mslexia Children’s Novel competition, and longlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2022 and the Berkshire Book Award. It was picked by Suzi Feay in the Financial Times as one of their ‘Best Books of 2021’. Her second novel, 21 Miles (HopeRoad, 2023) was described by Aoife Fitzpatrick, winner of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize 2020 and author of The Red Bird Sings as ‘spectacular and unforgettable. With one of the most moving endings that I have ever read, Garrard’s brilliant, compelling, insightful prose kept me gripped from start to finish.’
 
Nicola Garrard has appeared at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, Chichester Festival and Petworth Festival Literary Week and is a regular guest on BBC Radio London. She gives talks for schools, libraries and colleges (including for World Book Day), as well as prisons. Her words and poetry have been published in The Frogmore Papers magazine, Mslexia magazine, the Guardian and the Writers & Artists Yearbook Guide to Getting Published, and by IRON Press Publishing and the Poetry Book Society.
 
Nicola lives in West Sussex with her wife, three children and a Jack Russell terrier called Little Bear. She works at Minority Matters, a charity which aims to empower young people from isolated communities through engagement projects, as a teacher, fundraiser and shadow trustee.