Bea Davenport

Bea Davenport is the writing name of former journalist Barbara Henderson. She was a print reporter for tabloid and regional newspapers before spending seventeen years as a senior broadcast journalist with the BBC in the north-east of England. She left the BBC to complete a Creative Writing PhD at Newcastle University.

In Too Deep is her debut novel and it draws extensively on her own experience as a news reporter. It was shortlisted for the 2009 Luke Bitmead Bursary and then published in 2013 by Legend Press. A second crime/suspense novel for Legend Press, This Little Piggy, set against the backdrop of the 1984 miners’ strike, was published in October 2014. Bea has also had two children’s novels commercially published: The Serpent House and My Cousin Faustina.

She lives in Berwick upon Tweed with her partner and children. She is programme leader in creative writing for the Open College of the Arts and teaches journalism for the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey. She also teaches creative writing and journalism to adults and young people and is available for writing workshops and panels.