JANE ADAMS
Born: Leicester
Education: degree in sociology
Now lives: Leicester
Books published:The Angel Gateway; Final Frame; Fade to Grey; The Greenway; Mourning the Little Dead.
Genre:
Prizes won: The Greenway was short listed for the CWA John Creasey Award in 1995 and for the Author's Club Best First Novel Award.

A national campaign

ALLAN AHLBERG (with JANET AHLBERG, died 1994)
Born: London
School: Oldbury Grammar School, and he was a teacher for ten years before starting to write
Now lives: Birstall, Leicestershire
Books published: More than 65. Most famously, Each Peach Pear Plum; The Ha Ha Bonk Book; Monkey Do; Burglar Bill. Full bibliography
Genre: Illustrated children's

JULIAN BARNES
Born: Leicester - of two French teachers living in Coalville
Now lives: London
Books published: Metroland; Talking It Over; Flaubert's Parrot; England, England: History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters; Before She Met Me; Staring At The Sun; Cross Channel; Love, etc; The Porcupine; The Truth About Dogs, Something to Declare; In the Land of Pain
Genre: history, reality, truth and love
Prizes won: Somerset Maugham Award (Metroland 1981), two Booker Prize nominations (Flaubert's Parrot 1984, England, England 1998); Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (FP 1985); Prix Médicis (FP 1986); E. M. Forster Award (American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1986); Gutenberg Prize (1987); Grinzane Cavour Prize (Italy, 1988); and the Prix Femina (Talking It Over 1992). Barnes was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Des Lettres in 1988 and became an Officier de l'Ordre Des Arts et Des Lettres in 1995. In 1993 he was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the FVS Foundation.
Quote: "Keep reading"
Weird fact: still a Leicester City Fan

CLIVE COLLINS
Born: Leicester
Now lives: Tokyo
Books published: The Foreign Husband; Sachiko's Wedding; Misunderstandings; Sea The Beautiful Sea; Telling Stories

People of all ages still enjoy a good book

JOHN THOMAS EDSON (known as J.T.)
Son of a local miner
Now lives: Melton Mowbray
Books published: 136 titles (that we're not going to list here!) which have sold 27 million copies. They include Arizona Gun Law; Oklahoma Outlaw; Arizona Range War; Wedge Goes to Arizona; Cure The Texas Fever; Texas Warrior; Texas Teamwork; Wanted, Belle Star
Genre: Cowboy (Also written in other genres)
Prizes won: First novel, Trail Boss won a small London publisher's competition.
Weird fact: formerly a fish and chip shop owner and postman

PIPPA GOODHART
Born: Leicester
Now lives: South Knighton, Leicester
Books published: Flow; Ginny's Egg; Arthur's Tractor; Firecat: Peter and the Werewolf; Molly and the Beanstalk; Alona's Story; Slow Magic; Flying Lessons: Sister Ella; Happy Sad; The House With No Name; Kind of Twins; Jack's Mouse; Frankie's Tree House; Friends Forever
Genre: Children's
Prizes: "Flow" (Mammoth; shortlisted for Smarties Prize) and "Ginny's Egg" (Mammoth; shortlisted for Young Telegraph Book of the Year).

LAURIE GRAHAM
Born: Bond Street Maternity Hospital, Leicester
School: Guthlaxton Grammar School
Now lives: Venice
Published: more than 15 books; radio plays; short stories. Books include The Unfortunates; The Future Homemakes of America; The Ten O'Clock Horses (set in Leicester) ; Perfect Meringues; Teenagers; Dog Days, Glenn Miller Nights; The Dress Circle
Genre: Crime. Also writes non-fiction.
Prizes:Was long listed for The Orange Prize and the Booker Prize.
Quote: "It took motherhood and a servere case of mid-thirties panic to get me seriously applying myself to the thing I knew how to do: write"
Weird fact: Grew up on the same street as Sue Townsend

JK Rowling isn't from these parts, but many other s are

GRAHAM JOYCE
Born:
Now lives:
Books published: Dreamside; Dark Sister; House of Lost Dreams; Requiem; The Tooth Fairy; The Stormwatcher
Genre: sci-fi, fantasy
Prizes won: Graham Joyce is a three-times winner of the British Fantasy Society's August Derleth Award, for Dark Sister, Requiem and The Tooth Fairy. Requiem was short-listed for the 1996 World Fantasy award.
Quote: on what made him go to the optician's..."a once famous model, came into a booklaunch party with two lovely Pekinese dogs at her feet. Being a friend to all canines (and slightly hammered on free wine) I went immediately to stroke them only to find pretty quickly that they were actually a pair of ridiculously large furry boots she was wearing. I was somewhat embarrassed. Had to make out I'd lost a contact lens on the floor"
Weird fact: Stephen King has listed one of Graham's novels in his top 100 books

JOE ORTON
Born: Leicester
School: Saffron Lane Council Estate
Died: 9 August 1967
Books and plays published: What the Butler Saw; The Boy Hairdresser/Lord Cucumber; Between Us Girls; Prick Up Your Ears; Head to Toe/Up Against It; Fred & Madge/The Visitors; Entertaining Mr Sloane; Head to Toe; Loot
Genre: savage comedy, black-humour farce
Quote: he was not a big fan of Leicester calling it "the city that is not the 'City'"

LYNDA PAGE
Born: Leicester
Now lives: Groby, Leicestershire
Books published: Evie; Annie; Josie; Peggie; And One For Luck; At The Toss of a Sixpence; Just By Chance; Any Old Iron; Now Or Never; In For A Penny; All Or Nothing; A Cut Above
Genre: Period novels
Weird fact: All the novels take place in Leicester or Leicestershire

BALI RAI
Born: Evington, Leicester
School: Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth College
Now lives: Leicester
Books published: Un-arranged Marriage; The Crew; Rani and Sukh
Genre: Teen fiction
Prizes won: The book has won the Angus, Stockport and Leicester Book Awards and has so far been translated into 6 other languages.

The TV adaptation of Adrian Mole The Cappuccino Years

SUE TOWNSEND
Born: Glen Hills, Glen Parva, Leicester
School: Glen Hills Infants and Juniors
Now lives: Leicester
Books published: Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman; Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 and three quarters; The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole; True Confessions of Adrian Mole; From Minor to Major; The Wilderness Years; The Cappuccino Years; The Queen And I; Rebuilding Coventry; Ghost Children; Wicked: Women's Wit; Number Ten
Genre: humourous and satirical novels
Quote: About writing for her regular column for a supermarket magazine: "I have no right to call myself a writer. The pros get up early and go to their study. After a moment's thought they type out 800 lucid double-spaced words. After a little light editing this document is sent to the editor with a chirpy comment on a compliments slip. I'm convinced other columnists do not do as I do - lie in bed quaking with fear, gnashing my teeth, telling anyone who will listen (few lately), 'I can't do it. I've got nothing to write about.'
Fact: 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole' became one of the greatest book successes of the 80s in Britain. With huge critical acclaim, it was soon translated into 20 different languages, adapted for the West End theatre, and sent into the homes of millions with a very popular television series. In less than two years a second book was published and Adrian Mole was lifted to cult status, breaking all previous sales records.

MAX WADE-MATTHEWS
Born: Norwich
School: Lowestoft, Norfolk
Now lives: Leicester
Books published: Classic Railway Journeys of the West; Great Railway Journeys of the West; Great Railway Journeys of the East; The Encyclopedia of Steam and Rail; Great Railway Journeys of the World; The World's Greatest Railway Journeys; World Encyclopedia of Musical Instruments; Musical Leicester; World Guide to Musical Instruments; The History of Musical Instruments; The Monuments of St Martin's Church, Leicester; The Monuments of St Mary de Castro's Church, Leicester; Grave Matters; Great Glen; Great Train Journeys of the East.
Genre: historical, factual, local history of Leicester

LOU WAKEFIELD
Born: and brought up in Leicester
Now lives: London
Books published: Rural Bliss; Tuscan Soup;
Has also written: Firm Friends, for ITV. Co-writes Ladies of Letters for Prunella Scales and Patricia Routledge on BBC Radio 4.
Other facts: Has also had an acting and directing career - which included playing Janet in the 1974 Kings Road Theatre production of Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Published - the great success of struggling novelists

PATRICIA WENDORF
Now lives: Leicestershire
Books published: The Marriage Menders; The Toll House; One of Us is Lying; Bye Bye Blackbird; Blanche; Lives of Translation; Double Wedding Ring; I Believe In Angels; Leo Days; Peacefully in Berlin; Larksleeve
Genre:
Prizes won: Patricia's first novel, Peacefully in Berlin, was runner-up for the Guardian Fiction Prize. Since then Patricia has written a number of well-reviewed novels, including the Sunday Times bestseller, Larksleeve

COLIN WILSON
Born: Leicester
School: left school at sixteen. Considered himself a genius
Books published: has written upwards of thirty novels including: The Outsiders; Ritual in the Dark; The Girl in the Labyrinth; The Schoolgirl Murder Case; The Personality Surgeon; Adrift in So Ho; and his autobiography Voyage to a Beginning. Has written more than 100 other books in every conceivable genre.
Fact: one of the original 'angry young men'
Quote: "I found when I was 16, working in the lab at school, that if I sat and meditated for three-quarters of an hour a day, and that if I got up very early in the morning and took a long run and then walked into town to school instead of taking the bus, that I just felt much fresher and happier"