Helen Cross

Helen Cross was born and brought up in the village of Newbald in East Yorkshire.

She has a BA in English and Drama from Goldsmith’s College, University of London and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.

Her first novel, My Summer of Love (Bloomsbury 2001) won a Betty Trask Award and became a BAFTA award-winning feature film. Her other novels are The Secrets She Keeps (Bloomsbury 2005) and Spilt Milk, Black Coffee (Bloomsbury 2009), which she has recently adapted for the screen.

Helen’s short stories have appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including most recently an anthology of female werewolf fiction: Wolf Girls, Dark Tales of Teeth, Claws and Lycogyny (Hic Dragones 2012). Forthcoming stories include Back to Work, commissioned in May 2012 by West Midlands Readers Network, and The Egg (Nine Arches Press 2012)

Her plays are regularly produced on BBC Radio 4, and her most recent Afternoon Play, Blue-Eyed Boy, was shortlisted for the Innovation Award in the 2012 BBC Radio Drama Awards. Her next Afternoon Play is Rowena The Wonderful, which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2013.

Helen is an experienced teacher of creative writing in schools and universities both in the UK and abroad. In 2004 Helen was awarded an Arts Council International Fellowship to live and work at the Banff Centre in Canada’s Rocky Mountains.

In January 2007 she travelled to India to be Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mumbai, and has recently returned from working in Hong Kong with the British Council. She teaches regularly for the Arvon Foundation and is a Visiting Lecturer in Creative Writing in the Graphic Design and Contemporary Art Department at Leeds Metropolitan University.

More details at www.helencross.net.