Penney, Stef 1969-

PERSONAL:

Born 1969, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Education: Graduate of Bristol University; studied film and TV in Bournemouth; participant in Carlton Television New Writers Scheme.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England.

CAREER:

Writer, novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker. Writer and director of two short films and programs for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and British Film Council.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Costa Award for Best First Novel and Costa Book of the Year Award (formerly Whitbread Prize), both 2007, both for The Tenderness of Wolves.

WRITINGS:

The Tenderness of Wolves, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2007.

Author of screenplay for The Seed, adaptation of Davide de Angelis novel; writer and director of The Knowledge, produced and distributed by the British Film Council; writer and director of You Drive Me, for British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); writer and director of The Messenger, BPCAD/Kelso Films; writer and director of The Baker's Tale, BPCAD; writer, Lune, BPCAD; and adaptor and screenwriter, El Amor Oculto, BPCAD.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stef Penney is a Scottish writer, screenwriter, and filmmaker based in London, England. After earning a degree in philosophy and theology at Bristol University, Penney took up filmmaking. She has written and directed several short films, and has created works for the BBC and the British Film Council.

Penney is also a novelist, and her debut work, The Tenderness of Wolves, garnered considerable critical and commercial attention, both for Penney and her original British publisher, Quercus. Set in the vast winter lands of Canada, the novel concerns a murder mystery on the rugged open frontier. The book was awarded the 2007 Costa Award (formerly the Whitbread Prize) for Best First Novel, as well as the Costa Award for Novel of the Year. Anthony Cheetham, chairman of Quercus, noted in the Bookseller that the novel's success would raise the publisher's profile considerably. The effects for Penney would also be profound, he said. "Literary prizes are not really that important—unless you have the good fortune to be on the receiving end," Cheetham mused. "For Stef Penney, the Costa is a triumph and an ordeal: the price of success is that a very private persona has now slipped, unmasked, into the public domain." An important element of that persona adds to the remarkable story of this debut novel: during the research and writing of the work, Penny suffered from agoraphobia. She never traveled to Canada to observe and experience the harsh, winter-gripped landscape she evokes in her book. Her agoraphobia made such travel impossible. Instead, Penney researched her story entirely within the relatively secure confines of the British Library. Even so, her efforts resulted in a book that "takes your breath away because it comes so close to perfection," commented Bookbag reviewer Sue Magee.

The Tenderness of Wolves is set in the cold and bleak environs of Canada's northern territory in the nineteenth century. Winter is approaching the small town of Dove River, threatening to bring dangerous cold and potentially lethal snowfall to an already treacherous landscape. As the novel opens, the protagonist, known only as Mrs. Ross, discovers the body of fur trapper Laurent Jammet, scalped and with his throat cut. Soon, the town authorities have gathered to investigate the murder, bringing in Hudson Bay representative Donald Moody to help out. Tellingly, Mrs. Ross's seventeen-year-old foster son, Francis, an Irish orphan she and her husband took in when he was five, disappears the same day that Jammet's murder is discovered. Francis was known to visit Jammet frequently, and his abrupt disappearance brings down great suspicion on him. Two sets of footprints in the snow lead away from Jammet's cabin, one set is believed to be Francis's. As the investigation unfolds, it hearkens back to another mystery from years before, when three girls went out on a picnic and only one returned.

The murder brings other newcomers to Dove River, including Thomas Sturrock, an elderly attorney who is in search of an ancient fragment of bone once owned by Jammet and which bears on its surface important historical etchings. A new suspect in the murder emerges when half-Indian trapper William Parker, who frequently traded with Jammet, is discovered searching the dead man's cabin. Through it all, Mrs. Ross is determined to find out the truth about the murder and exonerate her son, and she and Parker head north into the treacherous Canadian winter to find Francis and the answers that will prove his innocence. A distant Scandinavian settlement known as Himmelvanger will prove to be critical to all the novel's significant characters, even as their harrowing journey forges an unlikely bond between Parker and Mrs. Ross. The Canadian landscape and atmosphere is "so vividly drawn that I felt physically cold and terrified by the conditions the travelers faced," Magee remarked.

"This book wasn't written; it was crafted and in years to come it will be thought of as a classic," concluded Magee. Throughout the novel, commented Library Journal contributor Barbara Hoffert, "characters are distinctive, their portraits startling and incisive, and the writing is fluid and beautifully detailed." A Kirkus Reviews critic called the novel "a striking debut by a writer with tremendous command of language, setting, and voice." Entertainment Weekly reviewer Jennifer Reese named it a "gripping, elegantly written, and uncommonly powerful debut."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bookseller, February 16, 2007, "Hungry Like the Wolves: Stef Penney's Costa Winner Quadruples Sales and Has a New Edition on the Shelves," p. 17; February 16, 2007, Anthony Cheetham, "Prize Winners: Quercus' Stef Penney Won the Costa Book of the Year. Anthony Cheetham Tells How It Moves His Company from the Margins to the Mainstream," p. 24; February 23, 2007, "Recently Awarded," p. 41.

Books in Canada, November, 2006, Nancy Wigston, review of The Tenderness of Wolves, p. 36.

Bulletin with Newsweek, December 19, 2006, Robin Wallace-Crabbe, review of The Tenderness of Wolves, p. 161.

Entertainment Weekly, July 13, 2007, Jennifer Reese, review of The Tenderness of Wolves, p. 74.

Guardian (London, England), February 8, 2007, Mark Brown, "Agoraphobic Tells of Her Struggle to Win Book Prize," profile of Stef Penney.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2007, review of The Tenderness of Wolves.

Library Journal, May 1, 2007, Barbara Hoffert, review of The Tenderness of Wolves, p. 74.

M2 Best Books, February 8, 2007, "Stef Penney Wins Costa Book of the Year Award."

Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2007, review of The Tenderness of Wolves, p. 37.

ONLINE

Bookbag,http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/ (February 4, 2008), Sue Magee, review of The Tenderness of Wolves.

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Web site,http://news.bbc.co.uk/ (February 8, 2007), "Debut Novelist Wins Costa Award," profile of Stef Penney.

Dovegreyreader Scribbles Web log,http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/ (March 7, 2007), review of The Tenderness of Wolves.

MBA Literary Agents Unlimited Web site,http://www.mbalit.co.uk/ (February 4, 2008), biography of Stef Penney.

Mostly Fiction,http://www.mostlyfiction.com/ (July 10, 2007), Poornima Apte, review of The Tenderness of Wolves.