Midge Gillies (fl. c. 2000) is a British journalist, biographer and creative writing tutor. She was educated at

Girton College, Cambridge Girton College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college at Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college status by the un ...

. She has written extensively for newspapers including ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' and the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

''. She is the author of seven books, including biographies of the British

music hall Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Varie ...

star

Marie Lloyd Matilda Alice Victoria Wood (12 February 1870 – 7 October 1922), professionally known as Marie Lloyd (), was an English music hall singer, comedian and musical theatre actress. She was best known for her performances of songs such as "The Boy ...

and the pioneer woman aviator

Amy Johnson Amy Johnson (born 1 July 1903 – disappeared 5 January 1941) was a pioneering English pilot who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia. Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set many long-distance records dur ...

Nicholas Lezard Nicholas Andrew Selwyn LezardThe Cambridge University List of Members up to 31 December 1991, Cambridge University Press, p. 814 is an English journalist, author and literary critic. Background and education The Lezard family went from London to ...

reviewed ''The Barbed-Wire University'' in ''

'', calling it "a moving and eye-opening account of the lives of PoWs by the daughter of a man who was captured." For three years she was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge and is currently Academic Director for Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. Gillies is married and lives in Ely.

Major works

*''The Wedding Book''. Bloomsbury, 1997. *''Business Writing''. Marshall Publishing, 1999. *''Marie Lloyd: The One and Only''. Gollancz, 1999. *''Amy Johnson: Queen of the Air''. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003. *''Waiting For Hitler: Voices From Britain on the Brink of Invasion''. Hodder & Stoughton, 2006. *''How to write Memoir & Biographies.'' Guardian News & Media, 2008 *''Writing Lives: Literary Biography''. Cambridge University Press, 2009. *''The Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Allied Prisoners of War in the Second World War''. Aurum, 2011. She was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge For three years, and is currently Academic Director for

Creative Writing Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

Institute of Continuing Education The University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education (ICE) is a department of University of Cambridge, the University of Cambridge that provides continuing education programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, ranging from unde ...

References

Biographers from British India British journalists Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-nonfiction-writer-stub