Judith began writing fiction a decade ago, branching out alongside a successful career in magazine journalism.
After studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London, she graduated with Distinction in 2019. She is an alumna of Faber Academy’s six-month ‘Writing a Novel’ course.
She has won 1st Prize for the London Short Story Prize 2019, 2nd Prize for the Colm Tóibín International Short Story Award 2016, and 3rd Prize for the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize 2019, amongst others.
Her short stories have been published in a number of UK and international prize anthologies. Read ‘Winter, 1963’ and ‘To My Daughter’, published by Fairlight Books, here. Her work also appears in The Fairlight Book of Short Stories, Volume 1.
Judith originally studied English Literature at university. She holds an MA from the University of Warwick, where her dissertation was on the novelist Rosamond Lehmann. She is influenced by a host of classic authors, from William Blake to Charlotte Bronte, Wilkie Collins to Elizabeth Bowen, and Shirley Hazzard to Toni Morrison.
Some of her favourite 21st century novelists include Colm Tóibín, Ann Patchett, Sebastian Barry, Maggie O’Farrell, Claire Keegan, Sarah Winman, and the late Dame Hilary Mantel.
Judith grew up in Liverpool, and the city and its environs appear as strong influences in many of of her short stories.
Now she lives with her husband, Anthony, in South West London. They have two grown-up children and a spaniel.
When she’s not writing in London in a hut at the bottom of her garden, or researching in a library - possibly one of her favourite places to be - Judith escapes to Cornwall at any opportunity, where she turns her gaze to the sea.