Linda Illsley was born and raised in a tiny community of Orthodox Christians in Wigan. She tunnelled her way out through reading books and playing the piano, studying Music at Oxford and training to work as a specialist music teacher first in Salford, Greater Manchester, and later in London, where she now lives.

In 2020 a Faber Writing Academy course revived Linda’s childhood love for writing, where she explores fragile slices of life through short stories, and enjoys sharing tragicomic column-style perspectives on parenthood and twenty-first century life.

A memoir and a novel are on Linda’s to-do list for 2024.