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Beatrice Colin

British novelist, radio dramatist and academic

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ86057026
Source-derived summary

Beatrice Colin (14 October 1963 – 6 February 2019) was a British novelist, radio dramatist, and senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Strathclyde.

Early life

Beatrice Colin was born in London on 14 October 1963. Her family moved to Lancashire and then to Glasgow, where she attended Dumbarton Academy and Park School for Girls, followed by the University of Glasgow in 1982, where she read English. There she formed the musical duo April Showers with Jonathan Bernstein – their single "Abandon Ship" reached 144 in the UK singles charts.

Career

After graduating from the University of Glasgow, she worked as a journalist for the arts and features pages of publications including The Scotsman, Sunday Herald and The Guardian.

In her late twenties, she won a Radio 4 short story competition and started writing radio plays and adaptations. She was in a relationship with Love & Money singer James Grant and sang backing vocals on their album Strange Kind of Love (1988).

She completed her PhD in creative writing at the University of Strathclyde in 2008.

Novels

Nude, Untitled, 2001— shortlisted for the Saltire First Book Award

Disappearing Act, 2002

The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite (UK title), 2008The Glimmer Palace (US title), 2007 — Recommended by the Richard & Judy Book Club, 2009

The Songwriter, 2010 New York 1916, 2011 (Italian translation)

To Capture What We Cannot Keep, 2016

The Glass House, 2020

Short stories

"The Suffragette’s Party"

"Toad"

"Grey Evening"

For children

My Invisible Sister with Sara Pinto, 2010 (made into the film Invisible Sister by Disney TV)

Pyrate’s Boy, 2013 (as E B Colin)

Radio plays

Theatre

Film

Invisible Sister, 2015 Disney Channel Original Movie based on the book My Invisible Sister

The Hide, 2017 short film

Personal life

Colin married Ewan Morrison in 1996; the couple had two children, Theo in 1998 and Frances in 2001. Their marriage ended in 2003.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Beatrice Colin” as british novelist, radio dramatist and academic. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1963, 2019, 1982, 1988—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1963-10-14, 1963—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. The account is most persuasive where Beatrice, Colin and British can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as british novelist, radio dramatist and academic. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q86057026. VIAF identifies the subject as 276574162. The Library of Congress control number is no2002089822. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 2019, 1982 and 1988.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Beatrice Colin primary sources, Beatrice Colin archive and Beatrice research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Beatrice Colin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.