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Midge Gillies

Midge Gillies

02/06/2022 by midge.gillies

Midge Gillies is rarely happier than when she’s in an archive or talking to someone about the past. Her favourite period is World War Two.

Her books include biographies of the record-breaking pilot, Amy Johnson (Amy Johnson: Queen of the Air, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003) and the Edwardian music hall star, Marie Lloyd (Marie Lloyd, The One and Only, Gollancz, 1999). Her new book, Piccadilly, The Circus at the Heart of London was published by Two Roads in October 2022.

In The Barbed-Wire University (Aurum, 2012) she writes about Prisoners of War and creativity in what Nicholas Lezard of The Guardian described as “one of the best war books I have ever read”.

She has also written about Britain in 1940  (Waiting for Hitler, Hodder & Stoughton, 2007) and the lives of military spouses (Army Wives, From the Crimea to Afghanistan, the Real Lives of the Women Behind the Men in Uniform, Aurum, 2017).

Writing Lives: Literary Biography (CUP, 2009) and Literary Non-Fiction (A Writers’ & Artists’ Companion, written with Sal Cline, 2015) both examine aspects of creative non-fiction.

She is Academic Director of Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education and is married to the award-winning novelist, Jim Kelly (who also writes as JG Kelly). They live in the Fens with a cat called Midnight and an Irish terrier called Scout.

Published works:

Army Wives: From Crimea to Afghanistan:

Army Wives: From Crimea to Afghanistan:

Piccadilly: The Circus at the Heart of London

Piccadilly: The Circus at the Heart of London

The Barbed-Wire University:

The Barbed-Wire University:

Waiting for Hitler: Voices from Britain on the Brink of Invasion

Waiting for Hitler: Voices from Britain on the Brink of Invasion

Amy Johnson, Queen of the Air

Amy Johnson, Queen of the Air

Writing Lives: Literary Biography (Cambridge Contexts in Literature)

Writing Lives: Literary Biography (Cambridge Contexts in Literature)

Marie Lloyd: The One and Only

Marie Lloyd: The One and Only

Literary Non-Fiction: A Writers’ & Artists’ Companion: Writing About Everything From Travel to Food to Sex (Writers’ and Artists’ Companions)

Literary Non-Fiction: A Writers’ & Artists’ Companion: Writing About Everything From Travel to Food to Sex (Writers’ and Artists’ Companions)

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Historical Writers Association member - Midge Gillies

Writes about:

  • 19th Century
  • 20th Century

Is similar to:

  • Caroline Shenton
  • Clare Mulley

Is located in:

  • London and South-East

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