Nicholas Royle (born 20 March 1963 in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
) is an English novelist, editor, publisher, literary reviewer and creative writing lecturer.
Literary career
Author
Royle has written seven novels: ''Counterparts'', ''Saxophone Dreams'', ''The Matter of the Heart'', ''The Director’s Cut'', ''Antwerp'', ''Regicide'' and ''First Novel''. He also claims to have written more than 100 short stories, which have appeared in a variety of anthologies and magazines, including ''
Bad Idea'', with his short story ''Confessions of a Serial Coat Snatcher'' appearing in the 2008 ''Bad Idea Anthology''. He has written two short-story collections: ''Mortality'' and ''Ornithology''.
Awards
Royle has won a
British Fantasy Award
The British Fantasy Awards (BFA) are awarded annually by the British Fantasy Society (BFS), first in 1976. Prior to that they were known as The August Derleth Fantasy Awards (see August Derleth Award). First awarded in 1972 (to ''The Knight of ...
three times: Best Anthology in 1992 and 1993 and Best Short Story in 1993. He has been nominated for Best Short Story three further times.
''The Matter of the Heart'' won the
Bad Sex in Fiction Award in 1997.
Editor
As an editor, Royle is best known for having edited ''
The Lighthouse'', by
Alison Moore, which was shortlisted for the
2012 Man Booker Prize,
and ''
The Many'' by
Wyl Menmuir, which was longlisted for the
2016 Man Booker Prize.
He has also edited more than two dozen anthologies including ''A Book of Two Halves'', ''The Tiger Garden: A Book of Writers’ Dreams'', ''The Time Out Book of New York Short Stories'', and ''Dreams Never End'' (
Tindal Street Press) and several other novels. He has been series editor of ‘Best British Short Stories’ (Salt) since it launched in 2011.
Publisher
Royle owns and manages Nightjar Press, which publishes short stories as signed,
limited edition,
chapbook
A chapbook is a type of small printed booklet that was a popular medium for street literature throughout early modern Europe. Chapbooks were usually produced cheaply, illustrated with crude woodcuts and printed on a single sheet folded into 8, 1 ...
s. Nightjar Press has published authors including
M. John Harrison,
Christopher Kenworthy,
Joel Lane,
Alison Moore and
Michael Marshall Smith
Academic career
Royle was a Senior Lecturer and then Reader at the Manchester Writing School at
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Metropolitan University is located in the centre of Manchester, England. The university has 40,000 students and over 4,000 members of staff. It is home to four faculties (Arts and Humanities, Business and Law, Health and Education ...
From 2006 to 2022 and was Chair of Judges for the
Manchester Fiction Prize from its launch in 2009 until he left the university in 2022.
Bibliography
Novels
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Novellas
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Short story collections
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Non-fiction
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Personal life
Royle has two children - Charlie and Isabella - and lives in both Manchester and London.
Royle shares his name with Nicholas Royle (born 1957) who is an authority on
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida;Peeters (2013), pp. 12–13. See also 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was a French Algerian philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in a number of his texts, ...
, and the author of textbooks, including ''The Uncanny'', and a novel, ''Quilt''. The two writers are often confused with each other.
Notes
External links
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Interview with ''3:AM''
21st-century English novelists
21st-century English short story writers
Writers from Manchester
1963 births
Living people
Academics of Manchester Metropolitan University
English male novelists
21st-century English male writers
English horror writers
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