Grace McCleen

Life

McCleen was raised in a fundamentalist religion and for most of her life did not have much contact with unbelievers. Initially intending to become a full-time evangeliser, she was rejected by most universities but was made an unconditional offer by the University of Oxford despite having only two ‘A’ Levels. She has spoken about the opposition she faced from within the organisation to pursue further education at this time. She read English at Brasenose College and was awarded a high first. She then completed an M.A. by Research at York University for which she was awarded Distinction. When she was twenty-six, following a period of ill-health, she began writing three novels. She now lives in London. In 2016 she was the writer-in-residence at the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth. In 2017 she taught M.A. students at the Centre for New Writing in Manchester University. McCleen has worked in multimedia. She has stated a desire to discontinue writing, which she feels is destructive to her, and instead concentrate on music.

Work

McCleen is the author of three novels, The Land of Decoration (2012), The Professor of Poetry (2013), which prompted Hilary Mantel to call her "a finished artist", and The Offering (2015).

She is the author of a collection of poetry inspired by the Bronte sisters called Every Sounding Line, a story which appeared in the book How Much the Heart Can Hold: Seven Stories on Love, another that will appear in the book I Am Heathcliff, and nine as children’s picture books.

Her reviews have been published in the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer.

Awards

Articles

A selection of McCleen’s non-fiction can be read here: http://gracemccleen.com/reviews.html

Reviews

Amity Gaige in The New York Times Book Review wrote:

‘Gripping…philosophically sophisticated…McCleen never tips her hat. The writing is born of a genuine inquiry into the nature of religious belief, especially as it relates to one’s psychological development…The Land of Decoration puts a child at the crux of this interpretive dilemma, and our hearts go out to her.’

Chris Cleave wrote of The Land of Decoration in The Financial Times

‘...loveable, unique and thrillingly uncategorisable...an allegory disguised as a sermon, the simulation of a partial autobiography, an impersonation of a heart-breaking psychological analysis of loneliness standing in for a useful self-help book, all the while posing as a brilliant page-turning story...an extraordinary and peculiarly haunting novel.’

Hilary Mantel commented on The Professor of Poetry:

‘...an astonishing and luminous novel. The subject and form are traditional but every line is newly felt and freshly experienced…Grace McCleen is an author who, with only her second novel, is setting her own clever agenda. She is a finished artist, and performs on the page with all the aerial grace of someone who senses no limits to what she can do.’

Hepzibah Anderson wrote of The Professor of Poetry in The Observer:

‘[M]esmerising...incandescent...an intricate tapestry...Escher-like in its simple complexity...the silences almost as eloquent as the words that fill it. And what eloquence! There are sentences here of such agile cleverness, charged with wit and beauty and enchantment.’