Alan Bradley was born in Toronto, Ont. and grew up in the pleasant lakeside town of Cobourg, Ont. After a long career in television broadcasting, he took early retirement from the University of Saskatchewan to write full-time. He has published many children’s stories as well as lifestyle and arts columns in Canadian newspapers. His adult stories have been broadcast on CBC radio and published in various literary journals. He has also written several screenplays and taught university-level courses in screenwriting. He was the recipient of the first Saskatchewan Writers Guild Award for Children’s Literature. After writing for several years on the Maltese island of Gozo, Alan Bradley now lives on the Isle of Man.
The first book of his Flavia de Luce series, “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” won the 2007 Debut Dagger Award of the Crime Writers Association in the UK; the 2009 Agatha Award for Best First Novel; the 2010 Dilys, awarded by the International Mystery Booksellers Association; the Spotted Owl Award, given by the Friends of Mystery, and the 2010 Arthur Ellis Award, given by the Crime Writers of Canada for Best First Novel. “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” has also been nominated for an Anthony Award, a Barry Award, and a Macavity Award. Besides appearing on the New York Times bestsellers list as a Favorite Mystery of 2009, “Sweetness” was also, among other honours, an American Library Association nominee as Best Book For Young Adults; a Barnes and Noble Bestseller, and was named to the 2009 Bloomer List. The audiobook version of “The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie” was voted Best AudioBook by iTunes.
All six of the Flavia de Luce books published to date have been New York Times bestsellers, and are presently published in thirty-nine countries and thirty-six languages and the series has been optioned for television by the Academy Award-winning producer/director Sam Mendes, of “Skyfall” and “American Beauty” fame.