Former student publishes father’s biography

Congratulations to alumna Rosalind Eyben whose biography of her father has recently been published by Taylor & Francis.

John Horner and the Communist Party, Uncomfortable Encounters with Truth is a biography of the author’s father who created the modern Fire Brigades Union during the Second World War and resigned from the Communist Party in 1956. The book is for anyone concerned with problems of political allegiance, personal morality and associated states of denial that were to haunt Horner in later life.

‘When I enrolled on the Life Writing Programme to help me with a serious biography of my parents, I never envisaged a class mate enquiring about my earnest mother’s dress sense nor my last chapter as an interview with my father’s ghost,’ she says. ‘A reader recently emailed me, ‘The story is fascinating; well researched, beautifully written, and particularly poignant in the final chapters. But it is how you have told it that is so impressive, especially the liveliness of the narrative’. I  could not have done it without my brilliant tutors and classmates.’

If you want to write a biography, memoir, or other piece of life writing, why not join our two-year Life Writing Programmestarting at the end of September. We’re holding a taster session on the evening of Monday September at Kemptown Bookshop in Brighton so you can see if the course is for you before you commit. Book your place on the taster here.