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Louise Rennison (11 October 1951 – 29 February 2016) was an English author and comedian who wrote the ''
Confessions of Georgia Nicolson Louise Rennison (11 October 1951 – 29 February 2016) was an English author and comedian who wrote the '' Confessions of Georgia Nicolson'' series for teenage girls. The series records the exploits of a teenage girl, Georgia Nicolson, and her bes ...
'' series for teenage girls. The series records the exploits of a teenage girl, Georgia Nicolson, and her best friends, the Ace Gang. Her first and second novels, ''
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging ''Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging'' is a 1999 young adult novel by English author Louise Rennison. The book is the first of ten books in the ''Confessions of Georgia Nicolson'' series. The book was adapted into a film, '' Angus, Thongs a ...
'' and '' It's OK, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers'' were portrayed in a film adaptation called '' Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging''. She also wrote a series of books about Georgia's younger cousin, ''The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey''. Her one-woman live show ''Stevie Wonder Felt My Face'' won acclaim in the 1980s; her other shows were ''Bob Marley's Gardener Sold My Friend'' and ''Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head''.


Early life

Rennison was brought up in
Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
, Yorkshire, in a three-bedroomed council house in
Seacroft Seacroft is an outer-city suburb/township consisting mainly of council estate housing covering an extensive area of east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It lies in the LS14 Leeds postcode area, around east of Leeds city centre. It sits in th ...
with her mum, dad, grandparents, aunt, uncle (Robin) and cousin. She attended Parklands High School, an all-girls school, from the age of 11, which she later credited with inspiring her as a comedic writer. When she was 15, her family moved to
Wairakei Wairakei is a small settlement, and geothermal area a few kilometres north of Taupō, in the centre of the North Island of New Zealand, on the Waikato River. It is part of the Taupō Volcanic Zone and features several natural geysers, hot pool ...
, New Zealand, where she became pregnant at 17 and had a daughter, whom she placed for adoption. On returning to the UK, Rennison lived in a small flat in
Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan and multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road M ...
doing an assortment of jobs until she decided to pursue her dream of acting and enrolled in a Performing Arts course at the
University of Brighton The University of Brighton is a public university based on four campuses in Brighton and Eastbourne on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achieve ...
. In Brighton, she was part of
Liz Aggiss Liz Aggiss (born 28 May 1953) is a British live artist, dance performer, choreographer and film maker. Her work is inspired by early 20th century Ausdruckstanz (Expressionist dance), in particular the Grotesque dance of Valeska Gert, and by Brit ...
and Billy Cowie's dance company, Divas, performing in their 1986 show, ''Torei en Veran Veta Arnold!''.'List of Works', Aggiss and Cowie (eds) Anarchic Dance, Routledge 2006, p.174 With 'Barmy'
Jane Bassett Jane Bassett is an actress and TV writer. To date, her only TV work has been on the CBBC children's programme ''Bodger and Badger'', starring and writing in Series 5 from 1995 until the series ended in 1999. She played and voiced the puppet mous ...
, Joanna Boyce and Sarah Tompkinson she created a female cabaret group, Women with Beards, that poked fun at men and why they are responsible "for all the ills of society." Rennison and Bassett later performed as a double act, called Etheldreda.


Career

Rennison's first major success was her one-woman autobiographical show, "Stevie Wonder Felt My Face." She went on tour performing this show, including at the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...
, and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
later produced a one-off special of it. She began to write for
Woman's Hour ''Woman's Hour'' is a radio magazine programme broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC Light Programme, BBC Radio 2, and later BBC Radio 4. It has been on the air since 1946. History Created by Norman Collins and originally presented by A ...
on
Radio Four BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
, for comedians, and for a London newspaper. Her newspaper column was written about whatever personally interested her, such as how pointless it is to date over 35, and led to an invitation from Picadilly Press to write a teenage diary book. They said her writing was "so self-obsessed and so childish" that she would be perfect to write such a book. Rennison's first novel, ''Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging,'' was published in 1999 and became a worldwide bestseller, translated into 34 languages. Being her first novel, she used real names of people from her childhood as she wrote and forgot to change the names before the book was published. As a result, childhood friends were able to recognise themselves in the stories. Rennison said that she wrote not in an attempt to teach, but to make herself laugh. She said, "I wanted Georgia to be a decent person. I wanted her to be someone who is a bit stupid and self-obsessed and difficult and funny and rude, and a bit jealous and all those other things. But I wanted her to have a good heart." Rennison also said that her books were not just for teenage girls, but aimed to have a "potential resonance beyond the young." In particular, Rennison often brought feminist ideals into her writing. She wanted her books to get girls talking and deciding for themselves what they wanted to do and who they wanted to be, rather than letting men decide for them. Rennison wrote a number of sequels to ''Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging,'' and in 2010 began a second series based on Georgia's cousin, ''The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey''. Her death was announced on 29 February 2016 by her publisher
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
.


Recognition

''Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging'' won the
Nestlé Smarties Book Prize The Nestlé Children's Book Prize, and Nestlé Smarties Book Prize for a time, was a set of annual awards for British children's books that ran from 1985 to 2007. It was administered by BookTrust, an independent charity that promotes books and ...
Bronze Award in 1999, and was named a Printz Honor Book in 2001. In 2004, the fourth book in the series, ''
Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants! is young adult novel (a romance aimed at girls aged 13–15), by British author Louise Rennison. It is the fourth book in the Georgia Nicolson series. The book was first published in Great Britain by Piccadilly Press ...
'' topped
The New York Times Best Seller list ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...
. In 2008, she was named "Queen of Teen". Rennison was also rewarded with the
Roald Dahl Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter ace of Norwegian descent. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. Dahl has be ...
Funny Prize in 2010 for the first book in The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey series, ''
Withering Tights ''Withering Tights'' is the first in a series of books written by Louise Rennison called The Misadventures Of Tallulah Casey. The books are published HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publis ...
''. In 2008, her "Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging" was adapted into a movie by
Gurinder Chadha Gurinder Chadha, (born 10 January 1960) is a British film director of Indian origin. Most of her films explore the lives of Indians living in England. The common theme among her work showcases the trials of Indian women living in the UK and ho ...
. In the same year, she was a recipient of the Queen of Teen award. Despite the positive reception of her novels, Rennison faced interrogation from teachers and parents about her content. Often when she visited schools she was well received by the students, but the staff complained to her about the topics she discussed in her novels. Rennison rarely apologised for her writing. She sought out 14-year-old girls to talk with them about what they would want to read and wrote that. Her response to these teachers was, "Surely they know what to expect, they know
y books are Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or sevent ...
all about boys and snogging and all those experiences. What else am I going to talk about?"


Publications


Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

# ''
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging ''Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging'' is a 1999 young adult novel by English author Louise Rennison. The book is the first of ten books in the ''Confessions of Georgia Nicolson'' series. The book was adapted into a film, '' Angus, Thongs a ...
'' (1999) # '' It's OK, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers'' (UK title) / ''On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God'' (US title) (2001) # ''Knocked Out by my Nunga-Nungas'' (2002) # ''
Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants! is young adult novel (a romance aimed at girls aged 13–15), by British author Louise Rennison. It is the fourth book in the Georgia Nicolson series. The book was first published in Great Britain by Piccadilly Press ...
'' (2003) # ''...And That's When It Fell Off in My Hand'' (UK title) / ''Away Laughing on a Fast Camel'' (US title) (2004) # ''...Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers'' (2005) # ''Startled by His Furry Shorts'' (2006) # ''
Luuurve is a Many Trousered Thing ''Luuurve is a Many Trousered Thing'' (2007) is the eighth novel in the Georgia Nicolson series written by Louise Rennison Louise Rennison (11 October 1951 – 29 February 2016) was an English author and comedian who wrote the ''Confessions of G ...
'' (UK title) / ''Love is a Many Trousered Thing'' (US title) (2007) # ''Stop in the Name of Pants!'' (2008) # ''Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?'' (2009) In 2007, a guide titled ''Let the Snog Fest Begin!'' was released especially for
World Book Day World Book Day, also known as World Book and Copyright Day or International Day of the Book, is an annual event organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to promote reading, publishing, and copyrig ...
. In this, 'Georgia gives her top tips on how to look cool and how NOT to behave if you want to hang on to your Sex God'. A spin-off, titled ''How To Make Any Twit Fall in Love With You'', was made available in instalments in 2011 through
SugarScape Sugarscape is a model for artificially intelligent agent-based social simulation following some or all rules presented by Joshua M. Epstein & Robert Axtell in their book ''Growing Artificial Societies''. Origin Fundaments of Sugarscape models can ...
. The books detail events in one year of the life of a teenage girl named Georgia Nicolson as she grows up in England, along with a group of her close friends known as 'the Ace Gang.' The story is told autobiographically, through Georgia's journal. The setting exists in a
floating timeline A floating timeline (also known as a sliding timescale) is a device used in fiction, particularly in long-running serials in comics and animation as well as other media, to explain why characters Ageless, age little or not at all over a period of t ...
; Georgia is 14 years old in the first novel, set in 1999, and only 15 years old in the series' final chapter, set in 2009. The majority of plotlines explored in the series follow Georgia and her friends' relationships with boys. A continued theme is Georgia's inability to choose between her initial boyfriend Robbie, the Italian Masimo, and her close friend Dave. The books also narrate the relationships of the rest of the Ace Gang, in less detail, and the impact the main antagonist of the series Lindsay has on these relationships. A continual source of humour within the series derives from Georgia's family; her free-spirited mother, embarrassing father and grandfather, and eccentric younger sister, along with infamously bald Uncle Eddie. Violent pet cats Angus and Gordy (who are mixed breed of
domestic cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members o ...
s and
Scottish wildcat The Scottish wildcat is a European wildcat (''Felis silvestris silvestris'') Population (biology), population in Scotland. It was once widely distributed across Great Britain, but the population has declined drastically since the turn of the 20th ...
s) provide additional storylines throughout the series. Georgia's use of language is somewhat unusual, creating an amalgamation of common British slang, neologisms (often created by adding faux-Latin suffixes to everyday English words), and malaprops (e.g., she believes that
Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
was named "Emily Plankton"). She creates nicknames for countries by combining a key national cultural feature with the suffix "a-gogo-land"; e.g., the USA is Hamburger-a-gogo-land, and
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
is
Kiwi Kiwi most commonly refers to: * Kiwi (bird), a flightless bird native to New Zealand * Kiwi (nickname), a nickname for New Zealanders * Kiwifruit, an edible berry * Kiwi dollar or New Zealand dollar, a unit of currency Kiwi or KIWI may also refe ...
-a-gogo-land. A glossary is featured in the back of each novel to explain the meaning of her many peculiar phrases, such as 'red-bottomosity' (Georgia's term for unfaithfulness in relationships), as well as things, people, or concepts that international readers may not be familiar with, such as
Rolf Harris Rolf Harris (born 30 March 1930) is an Australian entertainer whose career has encompassed work as a musician, singer-songwriter, composer, comedian, actor, painter and television personality. He often used unusual instruments in his performan ...
. A specialised note is placed at the beginning of the American editions, explaining that some words have bizarrely different meanings between the UK and the US - e.g., "pants," "fanny," and "fag". Georgia remarks on matters such as her bewilderment that people in "Hamburger-a-gogo-land" refer to a lavatory as a "restroom" when she considers it one of the least restful places.


The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey

* ''
Withering Tights ''Withering Tights'' is the first in a series of books written by Louise Rennison called The Misadventures Of Tallulah Casey. The books are published HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publis ...
'' (2010) * ''A Midsummer Tights Dream'' (2012) * ''The Taming of the Tights'' (UK title) / ''Wild Girls, Wild Boys, Wild Tights'' (US title) (2013)


References


External links


Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

BBC Slink interview
Louise Rennison answers fans' questions on writing and the Georgia Nicolson books
Louise Rennison interview by Heidi Henneman
BookPage and ProMotion, April 2003
Louise Rennison Official Fan Page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rennison, Louise 1951 births 2016 deaths 20th-century English novelists 21st-century English novelists Alumni of the University of Brighton Confessions of Georgia Nicolson English children's writers English humorists English women comedians Place of death missing Writers from Leeds Women humorists People from Seacroft