Caitlin Moran

Catherine Elizabeth Moran is an English journalist, author, and broadcaster at The Times. She writes three columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, a TV review column, and the satirical Friday column "Celebrity Watch". Moran was named British Press Awards (BPA) Columnist of the Year for 2010 and both BPA Critic of the Year 2011 and Interviewer of the Year 2011. In 2012, she was named Columnist of the Year by the London Press Club and Culture Commentator at the Comment Awards in 2013.

Moran was born in Brighton, the eldest of eight children; she has four sisters and three brothers. Her father, who is of Irish extraction, was a "psychedelic rock pioneer" drummer who "did session work with many well-known bands in the Sixties" and later "confined to the sofa by osteoarthritis." Moran lived in a three-bedroom council house in Wolverhampton with her parents and siblings, an experience she described as akin to The Hunger Games.

Moran attended Springdale Junior School and was then educated at home from the age of 11, having attended Wolverhampton Girls' High School for only three weeks. She and her siblings received no formal education from their parents; the local council allowed this, as home education is legal in England. Moreover, Ms. Moran said they were "the only hippies in Wolverhampton." The children frequently played simple games like throwing mud at their houses. Moran describes her childhood as happy but revealed she left home as soon as she was able to do so at the age of 18.

Throughout her adolescence, Moran was certain that she would pursue a career as a writer. At the age of 13 in October 1988, she won a Dillons young readers' contest for an essay on Why I Like Books and was awarded £250 of book tokens. At the age of 15, she won The Observer's Young Reporter of the Year. She began her career as a journalist for Melody Maker, the weekly music publication, at the age of 16. Moran also wrote a novel called The Chronicles of Narmo at the age of 16, inspired by having been part of a home-schooled family.

In 1992, she launched her television career, hosting the Channel 4 music show Naked City, which ran for two series and featured a number of then-up-and-coming British bands such as Blur, Manic Street Preachers, and the Boo Radleys. Johnny Vaughan co-presented with her on Naked City.

Moran's upbringing inspired her TV drama/comedy series, Raised by Wolves, which aired in the UK on Channel 4 in December 2013. In July 2012, Moran became a Fellow of the University of Aberystwyth. In April 2014, she was named as one of Britain's most influential women in the BBC Woman's Hour power list 2014.

Moran's semi-autobiographical novel, How to Build a Girl is set in Wolverhampton in the early 1990s. It is the first of a planned trilogy, to be followed by How to Be Famous and concluding with How To Change The World. Moran co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of the same name alongside John Niven. She also served as an executive producer on the film, directed by Coky Giedroyc and starring Beanie Feldstein, Alfie Allen, Paddy Considine, and Sarah Solemani.