HELEN FIELDING Biography - Writers

 
 

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HELEN FIELDING

Helen Elizabeth Fielding (born February 19, 1958 in Morley, West Yorkshire) is       
an English author, best known as the author of the novel Bridget Jones's Diary (winner
of the 1998 British Book of the Year award) and its sequel Bridget Jones: The       
Edge Of Reason. In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50             
funniest acts in British comedy.                                                     
                                                                                     
Olivia Joules and The Overactive Imagination, a spoof on the spy genre, was         
published in 2004.                                                                   
                                                                                     
The Bridget Jones books had their origins in a column published in The               
Independent and The Daily Telegraph in 1997 and 1998. In 2005, she resumed her       
Bridget Jones column at the Independent. Bridget becomes pregnant and has a baby     
in this series, but love and commitment remain elusive.                             
                                                                                     
In her early years, she attended Wakefield Girls High School in Wakefield,           
England. Fielding graduated from St. Anne's College, University of Oxford with       
an English degree, and worked in television journalism for several years,           
including a stint as a researcher on Noel Edmonds's The Late, Late Breakfast         
Show in the mid-1980s, before writing her first novel, Cause Celeb. She was         
for a time the girlfriend of screenwriter Richard Curtis, who went on to write       
Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and the Blackadder series. The             
director of the film adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary, Sharon Maguire,           
appeared in the column/book as one of Bridget's friends, 'Shazzer'. Fielding         
also remains close friends with the writer Nick Hornby.                             
                                                                                     
In February 2004, she gave birth to her first child, a boy named Dashiell           
Michael, with longtime boyfriend Kevin Curran, a writer for The Simpsons. Their     
second child, a daughter, was born July 16, 2006. In the early 2000s, Fielding       
appeared in The Simpsons' 'episode A Star Is Born-Again as herself.