Blake Morrison
Philip Blake Morrison FRSL (born 8 October 1950) is an English poet and author who has published in a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. His greatest success came with the publication of his memoirs And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993), which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He has also written a study of the murder of James Bulger, As If. Since 2003, Morrison has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Blake Morrison
Writer and academic
And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993)
Life and career[edit]
Morrison was born in Skipton, North Yorkshire,[1] to an English father and an Irish mother. His parents were both physicians; his mother's maiden name was Agnes O'Shea, but her husband persuaded her to change "Agnes" to "Kim". The details of his mother's life in Ireland, to which Morrison had not been privy, formed the basis for his memoir, Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002).
Morrison lived in Thornton-in-Craven and attended Ermysted's Grammar School.[2] He later studied English literature at the University of Nottingham and UCL. He worked for The Times Literary Supplement (1978–81) and was literary editor of both The Observer (1981–89) and the Independent on Sunday (1989–95). Morrison's early writing career outside of journalism was as a poet and poetry critic.
He became a full-time writer in 1995 and has since produced novels and volumes of autobiography as well as plays, libretti, and writing for television. He has contributed articles to The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, the New Statesman, The New York Times and Poetry Review and since 2001 he has written regularly for The Guardian.
In 2003, he became Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, London, and in 2008 he became chair of The Reader Organisation, the UK centre for research and promotion of reading as a therapeutic activity. In 2006, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts by Plymouth University.
Morrison is Patron of Guildford-based educational, cultural and social community hub The Guildford Institute.
Film, television and theatre adaptations[edit]
His 1993 memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father? was made into a film of the same name, released in 2007, starring Jim Broadbent as Morrison's father, Juliet Stevenson as his mother, Gina McKee as his wife, Sarah Lancashire as Aunty Beaty, and Colin Firth and Matthew Beard playing Blake Morrison himself as an adult and teenager, respectively.
It was directed by Anand Tucker, produced by Elizabeth Karlsson, with a screenplay by David Nicholls. Filming took place in Cromford, Derbyshire, and the surrounding area. The film was released in 2007.
A three-part television adaptation of Morrison's 2010 novel The Last Weekend was shown on ITV1 in August–September 2012.[14]
The TV series of Morrison's novel South of the River is being made by World Productions and adapted by screenwriter Danny Brocklehurst.