About Richard Beard

Richard Beard is the author of six novels and five books of narrative non-fiction, as well as short stories, feature articles, opinion pieces and reviews for the Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement, the Financial Times, Prospect, New Statesman, Byline Times and The Nightwatchman.

He studied at Cambridge, at the Open University, and with Malcolm Bradbury on the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. He has worked as a P.E. teacher, as Secretary to Mathilda, Duchess of Argyll and as an employee of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In the Mendip Hills he and his family looked after Brookleaze, a house owned by the Royal Society of Literature, before moving to Japan for three years as Professor of British Studies at the University of Tokyo.

Formerly Director of The National Academy of Writing in London, he has been a Creative Writing Fellow teaching the MA workshop at UEA and a freelance editor of novels. In 2017 he was a juror for Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize and has judged the Costa Short Story Award and the BBC National Short Story Award.

He is an opening batsman for the Authors XI Cricket Club.