Bea Davenport

Bea Davenport is the pen name of former print and broadcast journalist Barbara Henderson. She is a British crime and children's author. She also has won several prizes for short stories.

Originally from Tyneside, Bea Davenport has a Creative Writing Ph.D. from Newcastle University, where she studied under the supervision of award-winning writer Jackie Kay and renowned literature expert Professor Kim Reynolds.

The children's novel produced as part of the Ph.D., The Serpent House was shortlisted for the 2010 Times/Chicken House Award and published in 2014 by Curious Fox.

Her first crime/suspense novel, In Too Deep, was a runner-up in the Luke Bitmead Bursary and was published in 2013. A second crime/suspense novel, This Little Piggy, was also published by Legend Press in 2014.

Bea spent many years as a newspaper reporter and, latterly, seventeen years as a senior broadcast journalist with the BBC in the northeast of England.

Now she teaches journalism at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey. Additionally, Davenport is a program leader in Creative Writing for the Open College of the Arts, providing distance learning tutoring services for writers from home.

Bea Davenport lives in Berwick-upon-Tweed with her partner and children.

Photo credit: www.beadavenport.com