Nell Stevens Explained

Nell Stevens (born 1985)^[1] is a British writer of memoirs and fiction. She is an assistant professor in the University of Warwick School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures, where she teaches on the Warwick Writing Programme and lists her research interests as "historical fiction, autofiction, life writing, hybrid forms".^[2]

Writing

Stevens has published two memoirs. Bleaker House (2017) is about a period living on Bleaker Island in the South Atlantic.^{[3] [4]} Mrs Gaskell and Me (2018) draws on her own life and that of the English novelist Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–1865).^[5] She won a 2019 Somerset Maugham Award for Mrs Gaskell and Me.^[6]

She was shortlisted for the 2018 BBC National Short Story Award,^[7] and has written for publications including The New York Times, Vogue, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian and Granta.

Her first novel Briefly, a Delicious Life was published in 2022.^[8]

Stevens appeared on BBC Radio 4's Open Book in January 2023, where she and Tom Crewe "discuss[ed] drawing creatively on marginal - and radical - LGBTQ voices from the 19th century".^[9]

Personal life

Stevens lives in London with her wife and son.^[10]

Selected publications

• Book: Stevens, Nell . Bleaker House: Chasing My Novel to the End of the World . Picador . 2017 . 9781509824410 . London . 2.
• Book: Stevens, Nell . Mrs Gaskell and Me: Two Women, Two Love Stories, Two Centuries Apart . Picador . 2018 . 9781509868216 . London . 2.
• Book: Stevens, Nell . Briefly, a Delicious Life . Picador . 2022 . 9781529083422 . London . 2.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Catalogue record for Bleaker House . JISC Library Hub . 9 January 2023.
2. Web site: Dr Nell Stevens . warwick.ac.uk . 9 January 2023.
   Web site: Warwick Writing Programme: People . warwick.ac.uk . University of Warwick . 9 January 2023.
3. News: O'Keefe . Alice . Bleaker House by Nell Stevens review – how not to write a novel . 9 January 2023 . The Guardian . 27 May 2017 . en.
4. Web site: McAlpin, Heller. Review of Bleaker House by Nell Stevens. March 21, 2017. Book Reviews, NPR.
5. News: Stevens . Nell . Communing with Mrs. Gaskell . 9 January 2023 . The New York Review of Books . 24 October 2018 . en.
6. Web site: 8 May 2020 . Somerset Maugham Awards . 9 January 2023 . Society of Authors.
7. Web site: 2018 Award Ceremony, Front Row BBC Short Story Awards . 9 January 2023 . www.english.cam.ac.uk.
8. News: Klaces . Caleb . Briefly, a Delicious Life by Nell Stevens review – on holiday with Chopin and George Sand . 9 January 2023 . The Guardian . 18 June 2022 . en.
9. Web site: BBC. Open Book. 15 January 2023.
10. Web site: Bio . Nell Stevens . 9 January 2023.