Jessica Andrews

Overview

Jessica Andrews writes fiction and non-fiction. Her work explores intersections of gender and social class in relation to the body and representations of these within experimental writing. She is interested in the fluid boundaries between fiction, memory and truth and how this relates to first-person authorship.

Her debut novel, Saltwater was published by Sceptre in 2019. It charts a search for identity within a northern, post-industrial, working-class community. It questions isolation, disconnection and belonging through the lens of a mother daughter relationship. It was published by Sceptre in 2019 and won the Portico Prize, known as 'the Booker of the North' in 2020.

Her second novel, Milk Teeth was also published by Sceptre in 2022. It interrogates somatic representations of gender and social class, with a particular focus on the body and desire. It was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award in 2023.

Her stage adaptation of BIFA winning and BAFTA nominated film Saint Maud by Rose Glass ran at Live Theatre in Newcastle in October 2024.

Her work is translated into Spanish, French, German, Italian, Greek, Korean, Turkish and Bulgarian and widely reviewed by the Guardian, the Independent, the TLS, Radio 4, New Statesman, Financial Times, the New York Times and the New Yorker, among others.

She is a Contributing Editor at ELLE magazine and she also writes for the Guardian, the Independent, BBC Radio 4, the Architectural Review and the Wellcome Trust, among many others. Her work has been featured on BBC Front Row and BBC Woman's Hour and she has given guest lectures at the University of Sheffield, the University of Liverpool, the University of Sunderland, the University of Kent, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and Texas State University. She has taught creative writing at organisations such as ARVON, Litro, New Writing North and the National Trust, to name a few. She regularly speaks at literary events, festivals and panels such as Cheltenham Literature Festival, Durham Book Festival, the Working-Class Writers Festival, Daunt Books Festival and York Literature Festival, and bookshops across Europe.

She was named on the ELLE list celebrating influential people in 2020, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction Futures for writers under the age of 35 in 2022 and longlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2022. She is an advocate for widening participating in the arts, and as part of this work she co-runs literary and arts magazine, The Grapevine and co-presents literary podcast, Tender Buttons, which features guests such as Sheila Heti, Max Porter, Garth Greenwell, Preti Taneja, Lola Olufemi, Isabel Waidner, Travis Alabanza and Bhanu Kapil.

Jessica is currently completing a PhD on representations of working-class women's bodies within contemporary literature through innovative literary forms.

Qualifications

• MA in Creative Writing, University of Kent, United Kingdom, Sep 2014 – Aug 2015
• BA in English Literature and Language, King's College London, United Kingdom, Sep 2010 – Aug 2013

Employment

• Contributing Editor, ELLE Magazine, Oct 2022 – present
• Lecturer in Creative Writing, City, University of London, Sep 2022 – present
• Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing, University of Roehampton, Sep 2021 – Aug 2022

Publications by category