Dr Midge Gillies

Dr Midge Gillies
Academic Director, Institute Teaching Officer in Creative Writing, University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education

Biography

I’m Assistant Teaching Professor at PACE. I have been teaching at the organisation for around twenty-five years, until a few years ago as Academic Director of Creative Writing.  I’ve taught on most of the programmes we offer and love the diversity of our students and the fact that they come from around the world. I truly believe that teaching has made me a better writer and I always learn something from being in a classroom – whether in a virtual sense or in real life. I’ve been fortunate enough to publish ten books but it’s only when I’m talking about books with other writers and readers that my work comes to life for me. I always leave a course with a long list of books to add to my “to be read list” after students have recommended a new title to me. In 2019 I won the Pilkington Prize for teaching and in 2021 was shortlisted and highly commended for Inclusive Practice in the Cambridge Student Union Student-Led Teaching Awards. I’ve been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Magdalene College for three years and am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. I have a PhD from the University of East Anglia. 

Research topics

I particularly enjoy true stories – although what constitutes “the truth” is open to question – which is one of the reasons I find non-fiction so fascinating. I like writing about people – often women – who do things that would terrify me, whether that’s flying across the world in a flimsy plane (as in my biography of Amy Johnson) or performing in front of a rowdy crowd at a music hall (as Marie Lloyd did). I love learning about ordinary people, who don’t always leave letters and diaries behind. I enjoy unearthing their stories through oral history, newspapers and memoirs. I’m particularly drawn to the Victorian and Edwardian period and the Second World War.

Publications

Books

  • Atlantic Furies: The Women Who Risked Everything to be the First to Fly, 2025
  • he Barbed-Wire University: The Real Lives of Allied Prisoners of War in the Second World War, 2025
  • Piccadilly: The Circus at the Heart of London, 2022

Courses Taught