Whitworth Hall Garden - Fiona Naughton

Gillian Wales

Gillian Wales is a chartered librarian who is co-author of 3 outstanding books on the history of mining art.

Gillian Wales

Gillian Wales has recently retired as manager of Bishop Auckland Town Hall which, operates as an arts venue incorporating the Eden Theatre and the McGuinness Gallery together with the Hutchinson Library and the Tourist Information Office. In addition to programming the venue, Gillian was also group manager of libraries in the Bishop Auckland area and has a keen interest in reading and promoting contemporary fiction.

She originated the extremely successful literary programme, ‘Book It!’, which included book launches, writing and publishing workshops. She also ran the national ‘Novel Approach/Practise to Deceive’ writing competition for 10 years. Patrons included David Almond, Pat Barker, Terry Deary and Anne Fine. The first winner,Jonathan Tulloch, went on to develop his prize-winning short story, Season Ticket, into a full-length novel which was subsequently filmed as ‘Purely Belter’.

Gillian has researched, co-written and published three well received books on mining art. She is currently working on a book about the artist Norman Cornish which will be published under the imprint  ‘Gemini Productions’. Gillian was a director of Mslexia, the  highly-praised  literary magazine for women who write.