William Nicholson

A highly regarded screenwriter as well as novelist and playwright, William Nicholson earned Oscar nominations for "Shadowlands" (1993) and "Gladiator" (2000), as well as major television award nominations for "A Private Matter" (HBO, 1992) and "Crime of the Century" (HBO, 1996) while enjoying a string of best-selling novels for young and adult readers, including the popular Wind on Fire (2000-2002) trilogy. His Catholic education informed many of his screen projects, which frequently dealt with issues of faith and spiritual identity with a non-secular context; the depth and emotional honesty of his writing reaped numerous awards on both sides of the Atlantic, though Nicholson's attempt to launch a directing career with 1997's "Firelight" was largely ignored. He turned to novel writing with the Wind on Fire series, which became worldwide favorites among young readers. Nicholson subsequently divided his time between novels, Tony-nominated plays like "The Retreat from Moscow" (2004), and feature films, which soon included "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (2007) and the film version of "Les Misérables" (2012). The quality of William Nicholson's body of written work made him among the most celebrated writers in multiple mediums.