Candida Crewe

Candida Crewe
Born
Candida Annabel Crewe

(1964-06-06) 6 June 1964 (age 62)
London, England
EducationSt Mary's School, Calne
OccupationWriter
Spouse
​
(div. 2010)​
Children3
Parents
Relatives
Writing career
Years active1985–present
Genres
Notable awardsCatherine Pakenham Award for Journalism (1990)

Candida Annabel Crewe (born 6 June 1964) is an English novelist, non-fiction writer, journalist and founder of the publishing cooperative and organisation of writers The Authors' Collective. She is the author of seven novels and a work of memoir.

Early life

Family

Candida Annabel Crewe was born in London on 6 June 1964. Her parents were the writers Quentin Crewe and Angela Huth. After her parents divorced, her father married Susan Cavendish. By 1978, Candida's mother had married James Howard-Johnston, a university lecturer in Byzantine Studies at the University of Oxford. Candida Crewe's paternal grandmother was Lady Annabel Crewe-Milnes, who had seven children, one of which was Terence O'Neill, half-brother of Quentin Crewe and the prime minister of Northern Ireland from 1963 to 1969. Lady Annabel was a daughter of the diplomat Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe.

Education and juvenilia

Crewe was educated at St Mary's School, Calne, in Wiltshire. She began to write stories at the age of five, though wanted to be an actress. When Crewe was nine, she wrote a play about extramarital affairs for her mother as a birthday present; her first novel was written at age 12 which was an attempt to emulate Noel Streatfeild's children's novels Ballet Shoes (1936) and Tennis Shoes (1937). As an only child, Crewe began writing as a response to loneliness. At 18, Crewe moved to London and began work for the publisher Naim Attallah at his Quartet Bookshop in Soho.

Career

At 18, Crewe wrote her first published novel, Focus (Collins, 1985), which follows a young fashion model involved in a love triangle. From the success of this novel, Crewe became a full-time freelance writer. In 1986–87, when she was 21, Crewe wrote a column for the Evening Standard. Crewe's second book, Romantic Hero (1986), was also published by Collins. The novel follows its main character, India, and her relationship with a deceitful lover. This was followed by Accommodating Molly (Mandarin, 1989) and Mad About Bees (Heinemann, 1991). Crewe has since been a frequent contributor to The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Spectator and The Guardian; and has had two columns in The Times Magazine. For The Times, Crewe interviewed notable authors in the 1990s.

In 1996, Crewe's fifth novel, Falling Away, was published by Century. The novel follows a midwife sent to the Scottish equivalent of one of the Irish Magdalen laundries and was inspired by Crewe's research for her work as a journalist into the history these homes for unmarried mothers, where women were made to perform hard physical labour. The novel shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Crewe's sixth book, The Last to Know, was also published by Century in 1998. The novel is focused on a general practitioner's sudden estrangement from his wife, alternating between the two's perspectives. In The Sewanee Review, Merritt Moseley wrote of the novel: "Crewe is good on the little details of life, the ramifications of small decisions and minor actions, and The Last to Know is a fine study of how just such minor matters make up life-changing events".

In 2006, Crewe's seventh book and first work of memoir, Eating Myself, was published by Bloomsbury. The memoir details her suffering from anorexia and bulimia and, later, what she terms "normal-abnormal eating".

Crewe's eighth book and seventh novel, Disapproval, was published in 2026 by The Authors' Collective, a publishing cooperative and organisation of writers originally conceived of by Crewe and launched the same year with co-founders James Dunford Wood, Melissa Jones and Conrad Williams. Crewe conceptualised the Collective as an alternative to the small-press model of independent publishing, with its emphasis on the preservation of authorial integrity with regard to the declining sales of literary fiction.

Awards

Crewe won the Catherine Pakenham Award for Journalism in 1990 for an article on a peanut butter convention. Her novel Falling Away (2006) was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Crewe has twice been a fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, first at Oxford Brookes University from 2009 to 2012 and then at the University of Oxford's School of Archaeology from 2015 to 2017.

Personal life

Crewe was married to the Northern Irish photographer Donovan Wylie, with whom she has three children. They divorced in 2010.

Bibliography

Year Title Publisher ISBN Pages Notes
1985 Focus Collins Publishers 9780006171577 190 Novel.
1986 Romantic Hero 9780006173687 224
1989 Accommodating Molly Mandarin 9780434143368 288
1991 Mad About Bees Heinemann 9780749307325 265
1996 Falling Away Century 9780099605911 288 Novel; shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.
1998 The Last to Know 9780099606017 263 Novel.
2006 Eating Myself Bloomsbury Publishing 9781408857526 241 Memoir.
2026 Disapproval The Authors' Collective 9781068527357 309 Novel.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Bily, Cynthia A. (2007). "Candida Crewe". Guide to Literary Masters and Their Works. Salem Press – via EBSCO.
  2. ↑ Saunders, Kate (9 April 2026). "Her life on a plate". The Times. Archived from the original on 24 May 2026. Retrieved 6 October 2026.
  3. ↑ de Moubray, Jocelyn (16 November 1998). "Obituary: Quentin Crewe". The Independent. Archived from the original on 1 August 2022.
  4. ↑ Crewe, Candida. "Dressing down. Candida Crewe praises a rare dandy – her stepfather". The Oldie. Archived from the original on 16 July 2024. Retrieved 6 October 2026.
  5. ↑ Kilner, Lara (26 November 2023). "'After seven years of dementia decline, Mama is back'". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 27 November 2023. Retrieved 6 October 2026.
  6. ↑ Allen, Michael (1988). "The Dickens/Crewe Connection". Dickens Quarterly. 5 (4): 185. ISSN 0742-5473. JSTOR 45291235.
  7. ↑ Crewe, Candida (24 May 2016). "Letter To My Younger Self". Royal Literary Fund (Audio). Retrieved 7 October 2026.
  8. ↑ Pasternak, Anna (6 February 2021). "Naim Attallah, the Eighties literary 'It' girl set, and me". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 18 February 2021. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Candida Crewe". Royal Literary Fund. Retrieved 28 September 2026.
  10. ↑ Moseley, Merritt (1999). "The World We Live In". The Sewanee Review. 107 (4): 604. ISSN 0037-3052. JSTOR 27548763.
  11. ↑ Leith, William (5 May 2006). "The thin end of the wedge". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 7 October 2026.
  12. ↑ Crewe, Candida (2006). Eating Myself. London: Bloomsbury. p. 154. ISBN 9780747577553.
  13. ↑ "About". The Authors' Collective. Retrieved 17 September 2026.
  14. ↑ Snow, Maia (26 March 2026). "The Authors' Collective launches 'to tackle unfavourable market forces'". The Bookseller. Retrieved 17 September 2026.
  15. ↑ Nathan, Lucy (18 September 2026). "Authors launch publishing collaborative". BookBrunch. Retrieved 18 September 2026.
  16. ↑ Crewe, Candida (20 July 2020). "How to hang out with your ex-husband". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Archived from the original on 2 January 2026. Retrieved 27 October 2026.