The Birkbeck / Sophie Warne Fellowship for an emerging writer supports an outstanding graduate of the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA at a critical juncture in their writing life. We offer the writer time and space to pursue a project or new ways of working free from the pressure of specified outcomes, within the context of a professional residency. The residency also offers opportunity make contacts among established artists across all disciplines and others in the arts. The residency is a partnership between Cove Park, Birkbeck and the family of Sophie Warne.

Gemma Elwin Harris is a travel journalist who has lately turned her hand to fiction. In 2016 she gained Distinction on a Creative Writing MA at Birkbeck, and is currently finishing an adult novel  – a psychological drama set in London, Italy and Indonesia. Most recently, her gothic short story A Real Keeper won runner-up in a competition run by Stylist magazine and Virago.

Gemma is also the author of two non-fiction books for children, published by Faber and Faber. Big Questions from Little People (2010) and Does My Goldfish Know Who I Am? (2013) gathered over 150 experts to answer kids’ questions in aid of the NSPCC, with contributions from Philip Pullman, Jeanette Winterson, A C Grayling and Jarvis Cocker, among others.

She holds a BA in Modern Languages from Cambridge University and has a particular love for French and Italian literature. She has lived in Paris, Bologna, Sydney, New York and Edinburgh but has now settled in London with her husband and two sons, and works as assistant to the author Tracy Chevalier.

Image: Gemma Harris (photography, Johnny Ring).