Christie Watson


Christie Watson is a British writer and retired nurse. Her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, won the Costa First Novel Award in the 2011 Costa Book Awards. Her second novel Where Women Are Kings also won critical praise.

Early life and education

Born in Stevenage, she left school at the age of 16 and after volunteering for a year at Scope went into nursing. She trained at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Career

Watson worked for approximately 20 years as a nurse, but retired to concentrate on writing after a period of combining the two professions.

Nursing

Her nursing career included Great Ormond Street Hospital, St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, and Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital.

Writing

She won the Malcolm Bradbury Bursary, which enabled her to take an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, from where she graduated in 2009.
Her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, won the Costa First Novel Award in the 2011 Costa Book Awards.
Her second novel, Where Women Are Kings, also won critical praise and has been widely translated.
In 2018 she published a memoir, The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story, which was broadcast as the "Book of the Week" on BBC Radio 4 in May 2018. It was a Guardian, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, The Times, New Statesman, Netgalley and Reading Agency Book of the Year in 2018.

Private life

Watson lives in London with her two children. She met her paediatrician partner when they were both working at St Mary's Hospital in west London.