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Joan Lingard, author of 60 novels for adults and children, dies aged 90
Joan Lingard, author of 60 novels for both adults and children including After Colette, Dreams of Love and Modest Glory and the Kevin and Sadie quintet of books has died aged 90.
Lingard, who passed away peacefully on 12th July 2022, celebrated her 90th birthday earlier this year. Her career spanned five decades, with her most recent children’s book, Trouble on Cable Street, released by Catnip Publishing in 2014.
Other titles by Lingard include the novels The Kiss, Encarnita’s Journey and After You’ve Gone (Allison & Busby). Her debut novel, The Twelfth Day of July (Penguin), the first of the Kevin and Sadie series, is set in Belfast during the Troubles and was originally published in 1970.
Her literary agent, Lindsey Fraser of Fraser Ross Associates, said: “I read Joan’s novels as a teenager, sold her books as a bookseller, worked with her at Scottish Book Trust and had the privilege of being her literary agent. She was always inspiring and forthright, and she trusted her readers – children and adults — with big ideas and authentic emotions delivered through watertight plots. She was clever and focused – thank goodness she used her considerable talents to write novels.”
Francesca Dow, m.d. of Penguin Random House Children’s, said: "Joan Lingard was an incredible writer who gave us some of the most important stories of her time. For her YA titles on our list, the Kevin and Sadie books are essential reading. A love story set during the troubles in Northern Ireland, the emotions she shared, the situation she portrayed so vividly still resonate with young people today."
The author was a committed member of Scottish PEN, established Scottish Writers Against the Bomb and in the 1970s was a member of the committee that spearheaded the idea of a book festival in Edinburgh. She travelled internationally giving talks, and was a keen advocate of a writer’s right to be paid adequately for events.
In 2009 Lingard won the Royal Mail Award for Scottish Children’s Books, in 1998 was awarded an MBE for services to literature and across her career received many other awards.
She is survived by her husband Martin, children Kersten, Bridget and Jenny, five grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
