A NORTH-East playwright, poet and author has died after a long battle with cancer.

Julia Darling was well-known in the literary world and often set many of her novels in the region, including The Taxi Driver's Daughter, which was set in Heaton, Newcastle, where she lived with her two teenage daughters.

Other work included Crocodile Soup and numerous plays, including seven she wrote during a residency at Newcastle Live Theatre.

Ms Darling, who was in her late-40s, had cancer for ten years and died on Wednesday.

Born in Winchester, in the house where Jane Austen died, she went to art college in Cornwall before she moved to the North-East in 1980.

She often wrote about her illness in poems and short stories, and kept a log of her experiences on her website, www.juliadarling.co.uk

In 2003, she won the £60,000 Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award, Britain's biggest literary prize.

Friend and fellow writer Wendy Robertson said: "She was an adventurous spirit, and her spirit will continue through her work and the work of the people she encouraged.

"She was extremely funny and touched people in a way that made them feel better about themselves.

"Julia took on board her illness and wrote about it, about being positive. It was about owning the illness rather then being a victim. She lit up the room and a big light has been extinguished by her death."