Judith Cutler was born in 1946 in the Black Country. Chronically ill as a child with asthma, she lived her early life through books and the radio. In her late teens she won the Critical Quarterly Short Story Prize, and was published in a number of magazines. However, at Birmingham University, despite being taught by such distinguished writers as David Lodge and Malcolm Bradbury, she got writer's block, and produced nothing more till her mid-thirties, when she found she could write short stories again. Despite the success these enjoyed, it took her some years to find a voice as a novelist.
Cutler worked for many years at Matthew
Boulton College, Birmingham,
which inspired her to set her first crime novel, Dying
fall (1995), featuring lecturer Sophie Rivers, in a fictional
further education college. The next four Dying novels also
involve a college background. The most recent ones, Dying to
score, Dying by degrees, Dying by the book and
Dying in discord (May, 2002), all celebrate other aspects
of Birmingham and Black Country life, using some real locations
(Edgbaston Cricket Ground, the Birmingham and Midlands Institute,
and the Soho Foundry).
After leaving Matthew Boulton College, Cutler taught creative writing at Birmingham University, and at a number of other locations, from a high security jail to a Greek island. She also became the secretary of the Crime Writers' Association. A new series developed, featuring a detective sergeant in the West Midlands Police, Kate Power. Power is a newcomer to Birmingham, so she sees it with a stranger's eyes - and still likes it. This series too mixes real with fictional locations, as do two romantic novels, Coming alive and Head over heels, both set in Devon.
Although she is no longer based in the Midlands, Cutler will continue to feature the area whenever she can.
