Vivien Alcock

Vivien Alcock (1924-2003) was a British author of children's fiction born in Worthing, Sussex, who studied at Oxford's Ruskin School of Drawing before serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during the Second World War, driving ambulances in Belgium, where she met her future husband, fellow children's author Leon Garfield; the couple later adopted a daughter, Jane. Alcock published her debut novel, The Haunting of Cassie Palmer, in 1980 at the age of fifty-six; it was adapted as a television series the following year. Over the next two decades she published around twenty further books blending ghost stories and family drama for young readers, including The Stonewalkers, The Cuckoo Sister, and The Monster Garden, earning several American Library Association Notable Book citations and Horn Book honors, with The Trial of Anna Cotman shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.