People like Fiona Shaw

Fiona Shaw (born 16 February 1964) is a British novelist and academic. She has written a memoir as well as fiction for adults and children.

Shaw was born in London where she grew up the eldest of three daughters in a house in south London near the Thames. She has two daughters and currently lives in York with her partner.

Shaw attended university and earned a BA (first class) in English Literature from the University of York, an MA in American Studies from the University of Sussex, and completed her academic studies with a PhD at University of York on the American poet Elizabeth Bishop.

Alongside writing, Shaw worked part-time in bookshops, as a waitress, as a bike courier (briefly), as a copywriter for web developers, as a reader for the Aitken Alexander literary agency, and finally as a creative writing teacher. She developed and delivered Creative Writing courses in both life writing and fiction, in a range of community settings. In 2007, Shaw received a Royal Literary Fund (RLF) writing grant award, and she worked as an RLF Writing Fellow at her alma mater, University of York from 2007-2009 and then at the University of Sheffield, in the Animal and Plant Sciences Department from 2010-2012.