Book: Jubilee
Click to buy
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date(s): 2011 / 2012
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Book: Vigilante
Click to buy
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publication date(s): 2015
Biography: Shelley Harris gave up a glittering career as a nappy-changer to write Jubilee (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize, a Radio 4 Book At Bedtime and selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club in Summer 2012). Researching her second novel, Vigilante, she got locked in a police cell by accident and patrolled High Wycombe dressed as a superhero.
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/shelleywriter
Website: shelleyharris.co.uk
Twitter handle: @shelleywriter
Location: Buckinghamshire
Links to blog posts: http://shelleyharris.co.uk/blog
Contact: through my website
Writer Superpowers
I’m especially interested in feminism, and in women’s experience of working and family life. I’m also passionate about supporting new authors, and am an enthusiastic mentor for Womentoring, the project supporting low-income women writers.
I enjoy public speaking in all its forms, from delivering lectures (the 2013 Guild Lecture at Wycombe High School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOm83_GDq0k), to chairing and participating in panels (York Writing Festival and Guildford Book Festival), and performing readings of other authors’ work (at Oxford’s Short Stories Aloud).
I’m happy to talk on any aspect of writing or reading, and my life experience includes time as a teacher, as a local journalist, and as a beginning author juggling writing with childcare. I’ve lived in a Paris garret (really!), embarrassed myself in front of Arthur Miller and walked the streets of High Wycombe dressed as a superhero.
I’ve written book reviews for the Independent on Sunday, and a cover feature for the IoS New Review magazine (January 2015).
I regularly deliver Creative Writing workshops at writing festivals, in schools, and for the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education.