Stef Penney

Stef Penney won the 2006 Cost Book Award for her début novel The Tenderness of Wolves. Born in Edinburgh but now living and working in London, Penney studied Philosophy and Theology at Bristol University. After studying Film & TV at Bournemouth College of Art, she became screen-writer and director and has written and directed two short films.

The Tenderness of Wolves, a western set in Canada in the 1860s, features a main character called Mrs Ross, who appeared in an earlier screenplay written by Penney. Famously, Stef Penney never visited Canada while writing the novel; an agoraphobic, she did all her research at the British Library. She is currently working on a second novel, The Invisible Ones