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This year so far I’ve been privileged to read and review some FANTASTIC books, of which The Gifts by Liz Hyder was one. In this podcast I interview the author!
Liz Hyder is a writer, experienced workshop leader and award-winning arts PR consultant. She has a BA in drama from the University of Bristol and, in early 2018, won the Bridge Award/Moniack Mhor’s Emerging Writer Award. Bearmouth, her debut young adult novel, won a Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Branford Boase Award and was Children’s Book of the Year in The Times. The Gifts is her debut adult novel.
In this podcast we discuss Liz’s passion for research, editing and locations. She’s also an avid bird watcher who loves looking at bird photos and videos on social media if you’d like to send her some.
Find Liz Hyder
You can find Liz Hyder on Twitter, Instagram and her website.
More about Liz
I’m feeling pretty crappy right now, so much so that I just had a Covid test. So I’m not feeling sufficiently creative to write a 300+ word post supporting this truly enjoyable conversation. Therefore I cheated: I went to Liz’s website and copied then edited a chunk of her bio to increase SEO. I hope I don’t offend.
Liz trained with Spread the Word in London to run creative writing workshops. Now she runs workshops everywhere from schools and mosques to libraries. She led Writing West Midlands’ young writers group, Spark, in Shrewsbury from 2016-19. Previously, she developed a pilot series with Channel 4 Scotland. Also Liz collaborated with the E17 Shadow Puppet Theatre for the Cultural Olympiad. And she was runner-up of the Roy W Dean Writers’ Grant (International Writing Award).
As a freelance award-winning PR Consultant working in the arts (publishing, theatre, broadcast and festivals), Liz worked with household name authors, broadcasters, performers and presenters over the past 15 years. She worked in BBC publicity for six years on everything from EastEnders, Holby and Casualty to Radio 4 and arts TV. Since freelancing, she won various PPC (Publishers’ Publicity Circle) Awards. And was shortlisted for more. Recently she was the film coordinator at Hay Festival scheduling. This included organizing interviews with the great and good from the worlds of literature, science, history, politics and more.
A past member of the National Youth Theatre, Liz has a BA in Drama from the University of Bristol and is on the board of Wales Arts Review. Originally from North-East London, she has lived in South Shropshire for over a decade.
