Emma Darwin was born and brought up in London, but has also spent time in both Manhattan and Brussels, and later studied Drama at university. Her debut novel The Mathematics of Love (Headline Review) is probably the only novel ever to have been simultaneously listed for both the Commonwealth Writers Best First Book, and the RNA Novel of the Year prizes. Her bestselling second novel, A Secret Alchemy (Headline Review), was part of a PhD at Goldsmiths, which explored the writing of historical fiction. Her first non-fiction book, Getting Started in Writing Historical Fiction (John Murray Learning/Teach Yourself), was published in March 2016. She has been helping writers for over a decade, and has particular interests in historical fiction and creative non-fiction; she taught Creative Writing for the Open University for several years, has worked with academic writing as an RLF Fellow at Goldsmiths and the Royal College of Music, and blogs at This Itch of Writing.
