About Sue Limb

Comic novelist Sue Limb´s writing career started in London around 1980, with various assignments for magazines and newspapers. She first delved into young adult literature after writing features for the teenage magazine, Jackie. “I wanted to write for teenagers because I'd been working with them and knew about their fears, their worries and their concerns.”

Sue Limb has given talks to many local groups, W.I. meetings, literary societies and festivals, schools and colleges on subjects including the serious business of comedy, dialogue, history and nostalgia in period fiction, pastiche and parody, writing for children, adapting novels for TV and radio, etc.

She has written numerous novels for children including Grandma, which was shortlisted for the Smarties Prize. She is also the author of several highly-acclaimed adult novels including Love 40 and Up the Garden Path, which was quickly adapted for television and radio.

Limb lives in England.

How she came to write young adult literature…

I have always liked writing for young readers as they are very perceptive and don't put up with any pretentious stuff. Describing sunsets, forget it. It's a challenge to make sophisticated ideas and phrases accessible to young people. I hate the idea of writing down to them. They are so clever.

After University and doing a bit of research, I gave up academic life and wanted to earn my living as a writer. But I wasn't ready for it right away and became a high school teacher of English and Drama for 3 years. I had the greatest fun with the kids, and when I finally made the break from the classroom to the study, the first novel I wrote was about a school teacher and there were loads of scenes with her teenage classes. The kids were so funny and subversive. This novel called Up the Garden Path was adapted for TV and the teenager actors were fabulous.

I wrote a couple of novels for teenagers about ten years ago, though they were not published in the US. One was called "Me Jane" and the other "Big Trouble". But the mistake I made with those is that I tried to grapple with Big Issues such as drugs and child abuse. I knew I felt most comfortable with comedy but I didn't have the confidence to go for 100% entertainment back then. Now I just want to keep the reader hooked and give her or him the best time and loads of laughs and cringing. Other writers can do the serious stuff much better than me.