Sam Thompson

Sam Thompson is an award-winning fiction writer. His first book Communion Town was longlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize. His second book Jott was shortlisted for the 2019 Encore Prize. His third book Wolfstongue won a 2022 Spark School Book Award and was chosen as an Outstanding International Book 2023 by the US Board on Books for Young People. His short story collection Whirlwind Romance was published by Unsung Stories in April 2022. A new novel, The Fox’s Tower, is available now from Little Island and is longlisted for a 2022 British Science Fiction Association Award.

His short fiction has appeared in Best British Short Stories 2019 (Salt Publishing) and on BBC Radio 4, and in anthologies from Blackstaff Press, Unsung Stories and No Alibis Press, among other places. He teaches creative writing at Queen’s University, Belfast.

He grew up in the south of England and now lives in Belfast.

‘A unique voice. Grave, evocative, deeply compelling’ – Jeremy Dyson

‘The best animal adventure since Watership Down’ — The Times

‘Endlessly thought-provoking’ – Guardian

‘Astonishing. One of the most extraordinary children’s books I’ve ever read’ — Anthony McGowan

‘Dazzling… What Communion Town renders with stunning and often heartbreaking lucidity is the complexity of consciousness itself… an elegant and hauntingly beautiful book’ – New York Times Book Review

‘Sam Thompson’s stories are dark and tender and brilliantly strange’ – Alison Moore

‘The writing raises this to classic status… Gripping and profound, Wolfstongue may be for children but it is about being human’ – New Statesman

‘Thompson can make a sentence sing in a way that is uniquely his own’ – Daily Telegraph