Images: 1 by Dan Weill Photography; 4 by Geraint Lewis Photography.
My prose has appeared in Joyland Magazine and Mslexia among other places, and in 2022 I was shortlisted for TheTelegraph‘s Cassandra Jardine Memorial Prize for non-fiction. In 2023, I placed runner-up in the Oxford Review of Books short fiction prize. I am represented by Sallyanne Sweeney at International Creative Agency. I studied Creative Writing at Oxford and English Literature at Durham, where my main interests were American literature, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, campus novels, and contemporary stage drama.
My fiction is literary and largely exists in a contemporary setting. I grew up in a series of fields – having been born in rural Shropshire but raised in suburban North Carolina, then mid-Devon, then middle-of-nowhere north Hampshire – so I’m especially interested in landscapes, regional identity and everything that comes with it. My education at a Catholic school, Durham, and Oxford means I am fascinated by campus settings and contemporary engagement with tradition, especially the evangelical or academic. I’ve also written multiple stories set in Italian restaurants, which must mean that I feel very strongly about pasta.
I am also a playwright and theatre director, and currently the fourth Peter Shaffer playwright-in-residence at Trinity College, Cambridge. My writing has been performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, New Wimbledon Theatre Studio, Tristan Bates Theatre, Oxford Playhouse, and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, among other venues. As a director, my particular interests are comedy, musical theatre, and Shakespeare. In 2024, I was assistant director to Gregory Doran on his production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Oxford Playhouse. I have four years’ experience of professional (i.e. paid) theatre-making across youth productions, charity organisations, and university theatre, from large-scale plays and musicals to Shakespeare and smaller studio plays.
My other passions in life include closely curated playlists, dangly earrings, Earl Grey tea, and black-and-white cats.
I’m always very keen to talk to other writers, creatives, producers, or publishers. You can email me on imogen (dot) usherwood (at) gmail (dot) com, use the contact form on this website, or get in touch via instagram, where I am (at) imogenusherwood.
