Diana Hendry
Poet and Children's Author
Photo: Gerry Cambridge
WELCOME
About Diana Hendry
Primarily a poet, Diana also writes short stories and is the author of many children’s books. She’s worked as a journalist, English teacher and a tutor at the University of Bristol, University of the West of England and the Open University. She has tutored many creative writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and for a year was writer-in-residence at Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary.
She is an honorary member of Shore Poets, Edinburgh. From 2008-2010 she was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow based at Edinburgh University, and from 2015 to 2017 she was co-editor of New Writing Scotland. She regularly reviews fiction for The Spectator and is Assistant Editor at Mariscat Press, Edinburgh.
A New Book from Diana
A DANGEROUS JOB & OTHER ESSAYS
Diana writes:
Only when I'd put these essays together did I realise that they encompass my writing life from my early twenties as a gauche Young Thing in the Literary Department of The Sunday Times to my slightly cranky eighties reviewing fiction for The Spectator.
Reviews:
'Sharp, funny, independent-minded, these essays and reminiscences are a pleasure to read. Whatever the topic - insomnia, literary journalism, working with cancer patients, interviewing the great and good (Bertrand Russell, Stevie Smith and LS Lowry among them) - Diana Hendry offers an original perspective. Above all, she delights in appraising poems and quietly includes a few of her own.' - Blake Morrison
'Well, I recently stumbled on a document, gaily titled “Halcyon Days”, which sheds fascinating light on what our books desk forefathers were up to in the 1960s “Literary Department” of The Sunday Times. This bygone era is cheerfully and charmingly evoked by the octogenarian poet and journalist Diana Hendry in her new book, A Dangerous Job, published by Shoestring. Sacked from her first job for reading, 19-year-old Hendry thought it was a dream to become a secretary in the literary department where she didn’t have to hide her book under the desk. However, her sweet tone belies her sharp observations about the pompous men above her.'
'It’s a delightfully buoyant essay written by a kind of proto-Nina Stibbe. Hendry signs off with the most touching of sentiments: “Those early days in the Sunday Times literary department when I was given the freedom to read and felt like someone given the freedom of the city, remain among my happiest memories.” '
- Johanna Thomas-Corr
