Website: http://www.pennysimpson.com

Penny Simpson is a novelist and short story writer. She worked as a journalist specialising in the arts, before winning Barclays/TMA Theatre Critic of the Year.

Her assignments took her to post-war Croatia to work on a production of The Tempest set on a Dalmatian island and to Nikko, Japan, where she wrote about the yabusame horseback archers. She is currently assimilating her Croatian experiences into her next novel for Alcemi, The Deer Wedding, which is set in the Croatia of the Forties and the Nineties. Penny’s short story collection is DOGdays (Gomer); her first novel was The Banquet of Esther Rosenbaum (Alcemi).