Mary Sheepshanks

Mary Nickson

Author Mary Sheepshanks, who also writes under her maiden name Mary Nickson, was born and brought up at Eton College where her father was a housemaster, but childhood holidays spent at her grandparents’ house in Snowdonia gave her a love of the countryside and wild places, which has been an influence on her writing. She wrote stories and verses from an early age and her first published poem appeared in The Sunday Times when she was seventeen. At twenty-one, she married Charles Sheepshanks, the headmaster of Sunningdale School. They ran the school together until 1967 when they moved to his family home in Yorkshire. The house – which had been let during the war, first as a military hospital, later as a convalescent home – required much restoration and Charlie, a notable horticulturist, also set about adding to and enhancing the extensive gardens, which were to give pleasure to many over subsequent years. An idyllic period followed while their family were growing up. Both Charlie and Mary had many local commitments and her early writing aspirations were put on hold. Just before he died in 1991, after a long illness, Charlie asked her to promise that she would take her writing more seriously when she was left on her own. To her great delight her first novel was accepted by Century and published in 1995. Since then her novels have been published in the UK and USA to critical acclaim.

Her latest novel Secrets and Shadows (writing as Mary Nickson) was published by Century in 2006 and came out as a mass-market paperback in March 2007 under the Arrow imprint. Her previous novel The Venetian House has already been translated into six languages. She has started work on a seventh novel but is also currently writing her memories of her wartime Eton childhood and early years as a headmaster's wife at Sunningdale.

Mary has also written a commissioned book on bereavement for Michael Joseph, which became a Penguin paperback. She has had four collections of poetry published by Fighting Cock Press. Her poems have appeared in various anthologies and poetry magazines and in journals as diverse as The Spectator, The Countryman, The Times, Yorkshire Journal and Farmers Weekly. Mary has read her poems at festivals and concerts in the UK, Ireland and on the radio.

Mary recently moved from the Yorkshire Dales to Scotland and now lives in Perthshire. She has three children and a host of grandchildren – one of whom refers to her as his ‘wild writing Granny’.

Books By Mary Sheepshanks

FICTION — Published in the UK by Century/Arrow
A Price for Everything 1995
Facing the Music 1996
Picking up the Pieces 1997
Off-Balance 2000
The Venetian House 2005 (Writing as Mary Nickson)
Secrets and Shadows 2006 (Writing a Mary Nicskon)

NON FICTION — Published by Michael Joseph/Penguin Books
The Bird of My Loving – A Personal Response to Loss and Grief 1997

POETRY — Published by Fighting Cock Press
Patterns in the Dark 1991, Reprinted 2002 and 2009
Thinning Grapes 1992, Reprinted 2001
Kingfisher Days 1998, Reprinted 2002
Dancing Blues to Skylarks 2005