Wendy Brandmark

I am a  novelist and short story writer.  My last book, He Runs the Moon: Tales from the Cities, a collection of short stories (Holland Park Press 2016), was long listed for the Edgehill Short Story collection Prize. I won first prize in the short story category of the Bridport Prize in 2016. ‘Cut Loose’, the short story which won in a field of nearly 5000 entries, was described by judge novelist Tessa Hadley in her report: ‘There’s simply nothing out of place in this hushed, tensed imagining of the twisted history of violence between a man and a woman, all wrapped up as austerely as a Greek drama.’ My short stories have been published widely in magazines and anthologies, including Stand, North American Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Lilith. I have been a recipient of an Arts Council award towards the writing of short fiction.

My last novel, The Stray American (Holland Park Press, 2014), about an American lawyer adrift in London, was short listed for the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize 2015. My first novel, The Angry Gods (Dewi Lewis Publishing),), which explored racism and difference in New York City in the 1950s and 1970s, was reviewed in The Guardian, The Independent and the TLS.  My fiction reviews have appeared in the TLS, The Independent and the Literary Review. I have had writing residencies at the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Germany, the Virginia Centre for the Creative Arts, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. I directed the creative writing programme at Birkbeck College’s Faculty of Continuing Education. I am now a tutor in the Oxford University MA in Creative Writing and teach fiction writing at The City Lit in London. I am currently working on two novels and a second collection of short stories.