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

Girton College, Cambridge Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college status ...

. She has written extensively for newspapers including ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' and the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

''. 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 popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...

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 " T ...

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 duri ...

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." 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

References

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