Maggie O'Farrell was born in Northern Ireland in 1972. Her novels include The Marriage Portrait, Hamnet (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award), After You'd Gone, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, The Hand That First Held Mine (winner of the Costa Novel Award), and Instructions for a Heatwave. She has also written a memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. She has written two books for children, Where Snow Angels Go and The Boy Who Lost His Spark. She lives in Edinburgh.
