Fay Weldon was born in Worcester, England in 1933. Her father was a doctor and her mother was a writer of commercial fiction under the pen name "Pearl Bellairs." Her parents divorced when she was five, after which her family moved to New Zealand. She lived with her mother, sister and grandmother until she started college and, as a result, grew up believing "the world was peopled by females." She returned to England with her mother and studied economics and psychology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Her actual christened name was "Franklin Birkinshaw." She married Roy Weldon in 1962 and had three more sons in addition to a son fathered previously. Her first novel, THE FAT WOMAN’S JOKE, was published in 1967, but by then she had already written some fifty plays for radio, stage, or television. For the next 30 years she built a wonderfully successful career, publishing over 20 novels, collections of short stories, television movies, newspaper and magazine articles and becoming a well-known face and voice on the BBC. She and Ron divided their time between bucolic splendor in Somerset and a flat in London. Eventually they did divorce in 1994. Fay subsequently married Nick Fox, a poet, and her writing and career continue to flourish. They live in Hamptead, London.

Books by Fay Weldon