Current Job Title & Employer

Journalist and Author 

Dame Alice Owen’s Class of.....

I left Owens in 2004.

Brief description of your path after Owen’s.

After school, I went travelling for a year to Africa, Asia and Australia, before completing a degree in History at Cambridge University. I then completed a Postgraduate diploma in newspaper journalism at City University. After that I won a place on the graduate trainee scheme for journalists at the Mail, where I worked my way up from trainee news reporter to senior reporter, then deputy news editor, then head of investigations, then features editor. 

I took a year of maternity leave during which I had my first daughter in 2017. During that year I also completed a novel-writing course at the Faber Academy and wrote my first novel, Greenwich Park - a psychological thriller about motherhood - which was published two years later.

After my maternity leave I was appointed Head of News at The Times, where I started work in 2018. I moved to the Sunday Times in 2021 to become head of news projects, focusing on investigations. I decided to leave journalism in July 2022 to become a full-time author.

My next novel, The Other Mothers, is due to be released this June 8.

How has your career path led you to where you are now?

I have always loved writing, and been fascinated by the media, politics and history, so a history degree and then a career in journalism was a great fit for me. But secretly I always wanted to be a novelist - it just wasn't until I was in my thirties that I plucked up the courage to take it seriously, take a novel-writing course and actually try to finish a first draft. I never really imagined that writing books could be my full-time job, but I absolutely love it so far - and it allows me to spend loads of time with my young children, which is amazing.

Did your time at Owen’s inspire any particular skills or attributes?

I had such amazing, inspiring teachers at Owens, who taught me to think deeply about language, to think critically about the world and to always question other peoples' arguments and assumptions. In particular, I am so grateful to my English teacher Mr Brown who has since sadly passed away, and also my brilliant History teachers Mr Ewens and Mr Street. I remember they all really encouraged me to apply for Cambridge, and even took time during lunch breaks and after hours to help me to prepare for the interviews, which is something I'm so grateful to them for. Without that help, I probably would never have gone to Cambridge, and that is something that changed the course of my whole life really.

Favourite Owen’s memory?

The whole environment was so beautiful - looking back, we were so lucky! I remember going on walks around the lake during the lunchbreak to gossip with my friends or sitting around there in the summer months. And there were so many brilliant school trips - especially the World Challenge expedition to Venezuela in year 11, which was an incredible experience. 

@katherinefaulknerwrites