Lucy Jago

Lucy Jago is an award-winning writer of fiction and non-fiction. Her first book, The Northern Lights (Hamish Hamilton, 2001) won the National Biography prize and has been translated into eight languages. The book explores the troubled life of the prophetic Norwegian scientist, Kristian Birkeland, who discovered the cause of the aurora borealis. Lucy’s second book, Regency House Party (Timewarner, 2004), accompanied a popular Channel 4 series and her third, Montacute House (Bloomsbury, 2010), a young adult novel, was critically acclaimed both in the UK and the USA where it was published under the title The Coven’s Daughter. Lucy is currently finishing a novel inspired by an early 16th-century scandal and ghost-writing two non-fiction books. She intends to experiment with the short story format once these projects are completed. During her career, Lucy has also researched and written privately commissioned monographs and frequently contributed articles to magazines and the national press. She has founded a reading group for women writers, in which she finds great solace.

Before writing full-time, Lucy produced and directed history, arts and social documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4, which often involved writing pitches, scripts, narration and publicity. She also taught Documentary Production at Bournemouth University media school where she enjoyed tutoring up-and-coming talent. She graduated from King’s College, Cambridge, with a double first-class honours degree and went on to complete an MA at the Courtauld Institute.
Lucy now lives in London with her husband, three children and their many pets.