Members’ List
There are currently 27 names in this directory beginning with the letter S.
Sebba, AnneAnne Sebba: award winning biographer, historian and author of eleven books. Her latest, Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940’s, optioned for a TV multi part series, is the winner of the 2016 Franco-British Society book prize. Previously Anne wrote That Woman, a biography of Wallis Simpson and the scandal of the 1936 abdication crisis, which was an international bestseller. A former Reuters Foreign Correspondent, Anne is a broadcaster and regularly appears on television talking about her books, mostly biographies including Jennie Churchill, Mother Teresa, William Bankes and Laura Ashley. She is a former chair of Britain’s 10,000 strong Society of Authors, an accredited Nadfas lecturer who gives talks to a variety of audiences in the US and UK as well as on cruises and is currently working on a biography of Ethel Rosenberg, (publication UK and US 2021) electrocuted in 1953.
Smiddy PaulI am obsessed with books and aviation, so writing about aviation themes seemed an obvious path to take. My first biography (A Passion for Speed, The History Press, 2017), featured an Edwardian lady of immense courage, stamina, and capacity for lovers. The Hon. Mrs Victor Bruce came to my attention through her flying exploits, but these were but one facet of her remarkable character.
Spalding, FrancesWhile studying art history, I was drawn to biography. It pointed to the inter-relatedness of things. After studying Roger Fry for three years, I had a piece of luck; Paul Elek wanted to publish on Fry. I gave him a life and work, but my first proper biography was my life of Vanessa Bell. Few people had previously had access to her letters. Those which Vanessa exchanged with her sister Virginia Woolf helped carry my book into the American best-seller lists. I next chose to do a life of the poet, Stevie Smith, which John Carey reviewed. Then came Gwen Raverat, originally a Darwin, then Duncan Grant, John Minton and a couple, John Piper and Myfanwy Piper, forming differing pillars of the same arch.
www.francesspalding.net
Stanley, Jo
Dr Jo Stanley, FRHistS, FRSA, specialises in working creatively with the auto/biographical process, including making plays, films, exhibitions and podcasts. As an oral historian her collective biographies of adventurous women, particularly seafarers (e.g. Seafaring Women Though History, 2026) are based on rewarding explorations with the women themselves. Writing your Lifestory: A Guide to Writing Creative Autobiography was one of the first in its field. Interested in the biographers’ relationship with their own autobiography she belongs to the International AutoBiography Association and the BSA Auto/Biography Study Group.After early training in textile arts and as a therapist she is again merging healing arts and lifestory work. She lives in a Pennine mill village. Her website is http://www.jostanley.biz and her blog is http://genderedseas.blogspot.com.
Swan, Anna Anna Swan is a writer and editor. Her memoir, Statues without Shadows (published by Sceptre), won the Biographers’ Club Prize and was shortlisted for the J.R. Ackerley Prize.
