Julia Blackburn has written several books of non-fiction - Charles Waterton, The Emperor's Last Island, Daisy Bates in the Desert, With Billie - a family memoir, The Three of Us, which won the 2009 J. R. Ackerley Award, and, most recently, Thin Paths; and also two novels, The Book of Colour and The Leper's Companions, both of which were shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She is the author of seventeen short stories specially commisioned by BBC Radio, a selection of which were published in My Animals and Other Family, and four radio plays, including The Spellbound Horses, which was broadcast in 2011.