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Gail Simmons – Bath Spa University

Personal statement

Gail is a lecturer on Bath Spa’s MA in Nature and Travel Writing (low residency MA).

Her professional career is as a travel writer and journalist. Over the past twenty years she has written for the UK and international press, and broadcast for BBC Radio 4. Her first book, The Country of Larks: A Chiltern Journey, was published in 2019 and was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards. She is now embarked on her second book, to be published by Headline in 2023.

Gail has been a tutor on the MA since 2015 and has previously run travel writing courses at Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD Creative Writing, University of Reading
  • MA Medieval Studies, University of York
  • BA English and History, University of Keele

Professional memberships

  • Society of Authors

Areas of expertise

  • Travel writing (books, journalism)
  • Life writing (memoir)
  • Medieval history

Literary Festivals

  • Bath  Festival 
  • Guernsey Literary Festival 
  • Chalke Valley History Festival 
  • Chelsea History Festival 
  • Alderney Literary Festival 
  • Tring Book Festival 

Press 

  • Print: Times,  Guardian, Daily and Sunday Telegraph, TIME Magazine, Observer, BBC Countryfile magazine, Ecologist & Resurgence, Spectator, Independent, London Evening Standard, Sunday Times Travel magazine, Wanderlust magazine
  • Radio: BBC R4 Woman's Hour, From Our Own Correspondent, Excess Baggage 

Research supervision

  • Travel writing
  • Travel memoir

Research and academic outputs

Go to ResearchSPAce

Between the chalk and the sea
book

Simmons, G (2023) Between the chalk and the sea. Headline, London. ISBN 9781472280275


The country of larks: a Chiltern journey
book

Simmons, G (2019) The country of larks: a Chiltern journey. ‎Bradt, Chesham. ISBN 9781784770808


Walking with RLS
book_section

Simmons, G (2021) 'Walking with RLS.' In: Fortunate voyager: a celebration of Robert Louis Stevenson. Merchiston Publishing, Edinburgh, pp. 172-175. ISBN 9781911524038


Hispaniola to the home counties: travels in search of a writer
thesis

Simmons, G (2016) Hispaniola to the home counties: travels in search of a writer. PhD thesis, University of Reading.


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