Helen Sedgwick
Novelist
About
Helen Sedgwick is a cross-genre author of literary fiction, science fiction and folk horror. She writes about human connection across time and space, juxtaposing science with the supernatural and realism with ghost story. Her debut, The Comet Seekers (Harvill Secker, 2016), was selected as a best book of the year by the Herald and as Waterstones Scottish book of the month. Her feminist sci-fi The Growing Season (Harvill Secker, 2017) explores a world where pregnancy takes place outside the human body and was shortlisted for Scottish Fiction Book of the Year and featured in programmes about the ethics of reproductive technology on Woman’s Hour and BBC World. In a different genre, her folk-horror trilogy of When the Dead Come Calling, Where the Missing Gather and What Doesn’t Break Us (Point Blank, 2020–2022) was featured on BBC Scotland’s The Big Scottish Book Club.
In 2021 she was awarded the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship to write an interplanetary sci-fi series about rebuilding after environmental collapse and finding hope through quantum entanglement. Her belief in the connections between individuals, society and the planet, span her writing and her life; she is co-chair of the Society of Authors in Scotland committee and works across the industry to further the rights and improve pay and conditions for authors.
Before becoming a writer, Helen was a research scientist, gaining a PhD in physics from the University of Edinburgh and developing biotechnologies for cancer research. She lives in the Scottish Highlands with her family.