Michelle Spring

Michelle Spring is a novelist whose crime thrillers combine psychological insight with forensic interest in contemporary social issues. Her first novel Every Breath You Take was shortlisted for two major international awards; her fifth In the Midnight Hour won the Arthur Ellis award (given by the Crime Writers of Canada) for best novel of the year. Crime and Thriller Writing: a writers’ and artists’ companion, co-authored with Laurie R. King, was published by Bloomsbury in 2013.

Before launching into fiction writing, Michelle was professor of sociology at Anglia Ruskin University, and lecturer in social and political sciences at the University of Cambridge. Under the name Michelle Stanworth, she published four academic volumes, including the highly influential Gender and Schooling, and co-authored the textbook Introductory Sociology. Posts as the RLF Fellow in three Cambridge colleges enabled her to merge teaching experience with writing expertise and to help students communicate more effectively. She continues to tutor postgraduates at Jesus College, Cambridge, and undergraduates at Newnham and Christ’s.

Michelle Spring takes an active interest in the development of new literary writers, and has mentored many through the production of their first novel. She chairs the mentoring and judging panel for the Escalator project, run by the Writers’ Centre, Norwich, which aims to support and promote emerging writers of talent. Her current writing project is an historical novel set among homesteaders in Canada at the end of the 19th century.