Harriett Gilbert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Harriett Sarah Gilbert (born 25 August 1948, London, England) is an English writer, broadcaster and academic, perhaps best known as a presenter of book programmes on the BBC World Service.

Contents

[edit] Biography

She presents two literary programmes on BBC World Service radio: the weekly magazine The Word and the monthly World Book Club[1]. Guests on the latter have included Doris Lessing, VS Naipaul, Orhan Pamuk and Wole Soyinka. She also introduces the World Service arts documentary series Close Up.[2]

She said about presenting for the World Service, "I think I'm doing the dream job, I just love it, and I can't think of anywhere else I'd like to be".[3]

She has also presented arts programmes for BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Four television. Writer and broadcaster Michael Rosen called her "one of the very best presenters of arts programmes on radio or TV"[4]

She started out as an actor; her first role was Mother Elephant in Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. She gave up the stage and took up writing in her 20s [5]

She was literary editor of The New Statesman (1983-88) and, before that, of City Limits (1981-83). She has contributed to Time Out, The Guardian, and The Washington Post.

She is the programme director of the MA Creative writing (novels) course at the City University, London, where since 1992 she has lectured in the Department of Journalism. [6]

She is the daughter of the writer Michael Gilbert. She nominated A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes, first read to her by her father when she was eight, as a life-changing book[7]. Her father's one piece of advice to her about writing was: "For God's sake, don't use adverbs."[8] Her brother is the Independent journalist Gerard Gilbert[9].

She is the author of six novels, including Hotels With Empty Rooms and The Riding Mistress. Her non-fiction books include A Women's History of Sex and The Sexual Imagination from Acker to Zola.

She scripted the short animated film The Stain (1991) [10] viewable at the Internet Archive.

[edit] Bibliography

  • I Know Where I've Been - Harper and Row (USA) (1972).ISBN 006011522X
  • Hotels With Empty Rooms - Harpercollins (1973).ISBN 006011519X
  • An Offence Against the Persons - Hodder & Stoughton (1974):ISBN 0340185201
  • Given the Ammunition - Harper & Row (1976). ISBN 0060115149 (published in the UK as Tide Race - Constable (1977).ISBN 0094615705)
  • Running Away - Harper and Row (USA)(1979):ISBN 9990777985 - a novel for 'young adults'
  • The Riding Mistress - Constable (1983). ISBN 0094649901
  • A Women's History of Sex - Pandora P (1987) (illustrated by Christine Roche):ISBN 0863581420
  • The Sexual Imagination: From Acker to Zola - A Feminist Companion - Jonathan Cape (1993).ISBN 0224035355 (published in the US as Fetishes, Florentine Girdles, and Other Explorations into the Sexual Imagination - Harpercollins (1994).ISBN 0062733133)
  • Writing for Journalists - Routledge (1999) (with Wynford Hicks and Sally Adams):ISBN 0415184452

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004 by Elizabeth Sleeman, Routledge (2003):ISBN 1857431790
  1. ^ BBC podcast page of WBC
  2. ^ Close up homepage
  3. ^ BBC World Service Meet the Presenter - Harriett Gilbert
  4. ^ Michael Rosen website
  5. ^ World Service profile
  6. ^ City university page
  7. ^ Life Changing Reviews
  8. ^ Daily Telegraph obituary of Michael Gilbert, 10/02/2006
  9. ^ Independent obituary of Michael Gilbert, 10 February 2006
  10. ^ IMDb The Stain