Kathryn Evans (writer)

Evans was born and grew up a "Navy kid" in Portsmouth with three siblings. She lost her mother at a young age. Evans graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Drama from Bangor University in 1990.^[1]

Upon graduating university, Evans moved to Sussex and landed her first job working backstage in the green room of Chichester Festival Theatre.^[1] Needing to make ends meet, Evans was simultaneously introduced to the farming industry by her then-future husband Nick.^[2] The pair started off growing vegetables at Almodington Nurseries before setting up their own strawberry farm in Sidlesham.^[3]

At the recommendation of Natascha Biebow, Evans joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) circa 2002,^[4] where she honed her writing skills.

In 2016 via Usborne Books,^[1] Evans published her debut young adult (YA) science fiction novel More of Me, about a teenager Teva Webb who replicates herself every birthday, leaving the previous versions of herself stuck at that age.^[5] The novel had a U.S. publication in 2017 via Amulet Books (an Abrams Books imprint).^[6] More of Me won the 2016 Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award^[7] and the 2017 Crystal Kite Award in the UK and Ireland category,^[8] and was also shortlisted for the 2018 Concorde Book Award.^[9]

Evans reunited with Usborne for the publication of her second novel Beauty Sleep, a YA thriller re-telling of Sleeping Beauty about a girl named Laura who wakes up after being frozen for forty years.^[10] Beauty Sleep won Best Crime Novel for Young Adults at the 2020 CrimeFest Awards^[11] and the Portsmouth Book Award. The novel was also shortlisted for UCLan Publishing's Steam Children's Book Prize in the YA category^[12] and Lancashire Book of the Year.^[13]

In addition, Evans has worked with the BBC on educational programming. She presented a GCSE English language educational short film with poet Theresa Lola for BBC Bitesize.^[14]

Evans has praised the children's literature of Candy Gourlay, Michael Morpurgo, Jeanne Willis, Catherine Johnson and Matt Haig.^[4]

At university, Evans met her husband Nick, an agriculture student from a farming background. The couple live on their Sidlesham farm, where they raised their son and daughter in a Georgian style farm house, which Evans designed and built in 2001.^[2]

• More of Me (2016)
• Beauty Sleep (2019)