Winner of our Exceptional Contribution to Biography Award, 2025, Miranda Seymour’s I, Vera: The Many Lives of Vera Gedroits tells the inspiring story of ‘a towering, sweet-faced lesbian princess [and] an ardent supporter of workers’ rights who regularly performed true medical miracles of surgery. Pre-order your copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/i-vera/miranda-seymour//9780008650384 Can’t wait that long? Watch Seymour…

29 May, 14:00 @ The Buttery, Wolfson College (and online via Zoom) Register here: https://oclw.web.ox.ac.uk/event/a-story-of-survival-anne-sebba-and-dr-kate-kennedy-on-the-womens-orchestra-of-auschwitz

No matter where you are and what stage your writing has reached, you can join one of our classes to learn and to develop your writing in a supportive and expert-led environment. What to expect: Life-Writing Class: Mondays, 11:00-13:00; hybrid sessions, in person at Wolfson College and online via Zoom; led by Rebecca Abrams. Online Writing…

We are delighted to announce that the winner of this year’s prize is Matthew Cobb, author of Crick: A Mind in Motion, all about the essential role Francis Crick played – alongside his scientific partner James Watson – in the discovery of DNA. Congratulations also to the shortlisted runners up:

Patrons of the London Library are warmly invited to their annual gathering to thank those who have kindly chosen to leave a gift to the Library in their Will. Library Member Harriet Cullen will share insights from her biography of her mother, Lady Pamela Berry – a woman who was a bystander and protagonist across…

Andrew Kenrick, winner of the then Tony Lothian Prize (now Elizabeth Buccleuch Prize) will have his first biography published by Penguin in August 2026 as Rex Juba: 15 Glimpses of an African King. To pre-order your copy now, choose from the options included on Penguin’s website here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/467783/rex-juba-by-kenrick-andrew/9781911709787

18 – 25 APRIL 2026 OCLW have designed a bespoke programme for everyone to enjoy, from first-time writers to published authors. Led by Dr Kate Kennedy and Dr Tony Gray, tutors will be eminent writers in the fields of biography, fiction and creative non-fiction. OCLW are delighted to announce that their 2026 retreat will be…

New Biographers’ Club member Cecily Hennessy is the author most recently of Imperial and Royal Child Brides in Byzantium and Beyond (Arc Humanities Press). The book focuses on the Byzantine court in Constantinople and the young females (aged fourteen or younger) who married into the royal and imperial households of Byzantium and medieval Europe to…

Helen Bain, shortlisted for the 2021 Tony Lothian prize (now the Elizabeth Buccleuch prize) with Court Green: Sylvia Plath in Devon 1961-2, has developed the material she researched for that proposal into a novel, The Daffodil Days (Bloomsbury, 12 March). At the centre of the story are Sylvia Plath and her husband Ted Hughes, described…