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Valerie Mason-JohnValerie Mason-JohnBack | Genres | Bibliography | Prizes and awards | Contact details | Related links | Printer-friendly version
BiographyValerie Mason-John was born in 1962 in Cambridge, and uses the stage name 'Queenie'. She studied at Leeds University and later for an MA in Creative Writing at Sussex University, and is a playwright, author and performance poet. She worked as an international correspondent covering Australian aboriginal land rites. Her writing has included articles for various national publications, including The Guardian, The Voice and The Pink Paper, and she has done freelance research work for the BBC, Channel 4 and the Arts Council. She is also a former editor of Feminist Arts News, directed Pride Arts Festival for four years, and was the former artistic director of London Mardi Gras. She is also part of a team of trainers designing anger management programmes for schools.
She was an actress with the Talawa Theatre Company and in 2001 was Artist in Residence for PUSH 2001 at the Young Vic, the National Theatre and the Jerwood space in London. She has undertaken other residencies at Holloway Prison and Elizabeth Garret Anderson School. In 1998, she wrote and produced her first play, Sin Dykes. Since then her theatre writing credits have included Brown Girl in the Ring, a one-woman show which toured nationally, The Adventures of Snow Black and Rose Red, a family pantomime, and most recently, You Get Me.
Her first novel, Borrowed Body (2005), is told in the voice of Pauline, a young black girl of Nigerian descent, growing up in white foster homes and orphanages, then reclaimed by her mother. It won the 2006 MIND Book of the Year Award.
Her book Detox Your Heart (2006) is a non-fiction book dealing with anger, hatred and fear. In 1997, Valerie Mason-John was named Britain's Black Gay Icon and in 2000 won a Windrush Achievement Award for her contribution to the Black British community. She lives in South London and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2009 by the University of East London.
Her latest book is Broken Voices: 'Untouchable' Women Speak Out (2008).
Genres (in alphabetical order)Drama, Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry
BibliographyHalf the Earth: Women't Experience of Travel World Wide (second edition; contributor) Pandora Rough Guide, 1990 Frauen Zimmerim Haus Europa (contributor) Papyrossa, 1991 Black Art and Culture on the Mainland of Europe: France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Spain (editor) Arts Council, 1992 Lesbians Talking: Making Black Waves (with Ann Khambatta) Scarlet Press, 1993 Words from Word Up Cafe (contributor) Centreprise Publications, 1993 Talking Black: Lesbians of African and Asian Descent Speak Out (editor) Cassell, 1994 Assaults on Convention (contributor) Cassell, 1995 Brown Girl in the Ring: Plays, Prose and Poems Get A Grip, 1999 Borrowed Body Serpent's Tail, 2005 Tell Tales (contributor) Tell Tales/Flipped Eye Publication, 2005 Bleeding My Soul: New Writing for Women Doing Time (editor) Collage Arts, 2006 Detox Your Heart Windhorse, 2006 Broken Voices: 'Untouchable' Women Speak Out India Research Press, 2008
Prizes and awards2000 Windrush Achievement Award 2001 Black, Asian and Chinese Shoreline/Culture Word First Chapter for a Novel Competition 2002 Arts Council Writers' Award (shortlist) 2005 YoungMinds Book Award (shortlist) Borrowed Body 2006 MIND Book of the Year Award Borrowed Body 2007 Honorary Doctorate awarded by University of East London (Doctor of Letters)
Contact information
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