Midge Gillies

Midge Gillies writes social history and biographies. Her most recent book tells the story of one of London’s most famous landmarks. Piccadilly: The Circus at the Heart of London was a Hatchards’ non-fiction book of the month and the TLS described it as “a dreamscape of modernity and desire . . . a magpie’s nest of a book”.

Her book about the real lives of Prisoners of War, The Barbed-Wire University was praised by The Guardian’s reviewer as “one of the best war books I have ever read”. She has also written biographies about the pioneering pilot, Amy Johnson and the Edwardian music hall star, Marie Lloyd. Her book Atlantic Furies, about the early female pilots who raced to become the first woman to cross the ocean in a plane, will be published by Scribe in October. 

Midge created Granta’s Writing Memoir Workshop and teaches the programme to writers around the world. Until recently she was Academic Director of Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge and has a PhD from the University of East Anglia. Midge studied History at Girton College and was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge for three years.

She lives in Cambridgeshire with her husband, award-winning crime writer Jim Kelly. You can find out more at: https://midgegillies.com