Jill Dawson’s new novel The Language of Birds tells the story of the nanny at the centre of the Lord Lucan story. She is the author of ten novels including The Crime Writer (which won the East Anglian Book of the year) and Fred & Edie (short-listed for The Whitbread and Orange Prize). In 2003 she was the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at UEA then later the Creative Writing Fellow; she went on to teach on the BA in Creative Writing and the MA 2004-6. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Costa judge this year and currently runs Gold Dust Mentoring, a scheme for new writers. She lives in the Cambridgeshire Fens.