Emily Barr is the author of twenty two published novels and several screenplays.
Her first novel, Backpack, won the WHSmith New Talent award and she has since twice been nominated for the Carnegie Medal. She has written eight YA novels, including the multi-award- winning The One Memory of Flora Banks, which was published in 27 languages and shortlisted for the YA Book Prize. Her most recent sci-fi novel, The New One, was published by Berkley in the US in 2023, and her next YA novel, The Other Girl, will be published by Penguin in May 2025.
After taking the JYS Story for Screenwriting course in 2023, she is developing several screenplays, including a mermaid horror set in Cornwall and an adaptation of her own novel, The Sleeper. Both have producers and directors attached: The Sleeper project was the UK winner at JETS at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2024. Emily has taught creative writing for Faber Academy, Arvon, Falmouth University, Curtis Brown Creative and The Writers’ Block and runs a school creative writing club in Cornwall. She loves nothing more than talking about writing and encouraging new writers.
