About Anna

Anna Vaught is an English teacher, mentor and author of several books, including 2020’s novel Saving Lucia and short fiction collection, Famished; 2023 saw Saving Lucia published to national acclaim in Italy as Bang Bang Mussolini, memoir These Envoys of Beauty, The magical realism novel The Zebra and Lord Jones, a first teaching book, The Alchemy, and then the Curae anthology of short prose from the winning entrants to the prize she established in 2023 for writer-carers; next year sees her first essay collection, To Melt the Stars. 

Anna’s shorter and multi-genre works are widely published in journals, magazines and anthologies. Until recently, she was a columnist for Mslexia and has written regularly for The Bookseller, including as a columnist. With a background in secondary English, mentoring with young people and community arts, Anna is now a guest university lecturer, tutor for Jericho Writers and teaches occasionally at secondary level.

She works alongside chronic illness, and is a passionate campaigner for mental health provision and SEND support for young people. She is a PhD candidate at York St John from December 2023-4, undertaking a PhD by Published Works on Magical Realism and Trauma, foregrounding her own work. Her title begins with a quotation from her memoir: Go there on a wing in your imagination’: Magical Realism and imagination as therapeutic writing in Saving Lucia and These Envoys of Beauty.’