Rebecca Abrams

Rebecca is the author of seven published works of fiction and non-fiction. Her historical novel, Touching Distance (Picador, 2009) was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize for Literature and won the MJA Open Book Award for Fiction.  Her most recent non-fiction publications include Licoricia of Winchester: Power and Prejudice in Medieval England (LOWA, 2022), The Jewish Journey: 4000 Years in 22 Objects (Ashmolean, 2017), and  Jewish Treasures of Oxford Libraries (Bodleian Libraries, 2020), long-listed for the Wingate Literary Prize.  She is also the author of the acclaimed When Parents Die:  Learning to Live with the Loss of a Parent (Taylor & Francis, 3^rd edition, 2012) Her debut stage play, All of Us, a revisioning of Sophocles’ Electra, was performed at the Oxford Mint House in June 2019 and will be staged in New Zealand in 2023.  She has taught creative writing at Oxford University since 2007 and from 2017-2020 was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Brasenose College, Oxford.  She has also held posts as Writer-in-Residence for First Story and Gladstone’s Library. A former columnist on the Daily Telegraph, she is the recipient of an Amnesty International Press Award for Journalism and is a regular literary critic for the Financial Times.