Helen Bain

Helen Bain received a PhD in creative writing from King's College London and holds MA degrees in creative writing and modern/contemporary literature from Birkbeck, University of London. She was chosen for The London Library Emerging Writer's Programme 2020-21 and The Genesis Foundation Emerging Writers' Programme 2022-23. In 2024 she won The People's Friend Comedy Fiction Prize. 

Early extracts from her debut novel The Daffodil Days (Bloomsbury/Scribner, 2026) were shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Prize for Fiction 2023 and The Biographers’ Club Tony Lothian Prize 2021. She works at the Financial Times; previously at Vogue and the Guardian. She lives in a village in Sussex.