Profile
Frances Bingham is a London-based writer who has published fiction, non-fiction and poetry; her newest publication is a novel, The Principle of Camouflage, from Two Ravens Press (2011), available from the publishers on this link. The book is described by Maureen Duffy as ‘A true work of the imagination transporting Prospero’s isle, and us, to wartime Britain on a shining wave of sea images’.
(Cover image, Sealight by Liz Mathews)
The novel was nominated as a ‘missing contender’ for the Guardian First Book Award by Elizabeth Baines (Fictionbitch) on Guardian Books. She described it as an ‘enticingly strange wartime novel’ ‘Poetic…Very literary, probably not to a lot of people’s taste, but beautifully written. (I loved it.)’
Frances Bingham’s most recent non-fiction work, Journey from Winter (Carcanet, 2008) is the biographical critical edition of Valentine Ackland’s poems. As well as a full editorial introduction and notes, the book contains a biography of Valentine Ackland, setting the poems in the context of her life. FB was also commissioned to write the centenary celebration of Ackland for The Guardian, and contributed a chapter on Ackland and Warner to Critical Essays on Sylvia Townsend Warner (Edwin Mellen Press, 2006). Journey from Winter was widely reviewed; in the TLS (2009) a major article by Ali Smith described FB as ‘Ackland’s critical guardian angel’ and commended her ‘impassioned reading’. Other commissioned literary criticism includes articles on women writers and artists (also book reviews), both for academic and non-specialist publications.
Frances Bingham has published short stories in various anthologies; Double Tongue (Diva Book of Short Stories, 2000), which won the LAMBDA best anthology award; The Recognition Scene (Long Journey Home, The Women’s Press, 2001), and Call Me By My Name (Necrologue, Diva Books, 2003), reviewed in Time Out as ‘well-written and imaginative, particularly haunting…’
Her poem about Amy Johnson, Sicilian Avenue, was awarded a prize by Michael Donaghy at the York Poetry festival back in 1996, and she has since published a long poem, MOTHERTONGUE, as a limited edition artists’ book, with images by Liz Mathews. Her most recent poetry publication is Translating Sappho in issue 7 of Chroma (2008).
Frances Bingham has performed/read at various literary festivals and other venues, most recently with her novel at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (2011), as part of the Southbank Centre’s Literature and Spoken Word programme (2008) and she’s also been interviewed and read poetry live on Woman’s Hour, and contributed to the Radio 4 series From the Ban to the Booker.
She is the daughter of the Scots historian and biographer Caroline Bingham. For many years she has worked with her partner Liz Mathews, studio potter and lettering artist; until recently they had a gallery in Whitechapel, showing both LM’s work and that of guest artists. They also collaborate on some projects; LM created the images for the poem MOTHERTONGUE, also the cover images for Journey from Winter and The Principle of Camouflage, and has several times set FB’s texts in various ways, most recently at exhibitions in the Poetry Library at the Southbank Centre, The Ice House Gallery in Holland Park, and Woolfson & Tay bookshop gallery.
