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Eleanor Anstruther
ALLi Author Member
Location: United Kingdom (the)
Genres: Memoir, Commercial Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, General Fiction, Literary Fiction, Womens Fiction
Skills: Performance/Spoken Word, Press/Media Interview, Reading/Literary Event, Self-publishing Workshop/Training, Speaking Engagement/Lecture, Writing Workshop
Eleanor was born in London, educated at Westminster School and studied History of Art at Manchester University where she was distracted from finishing her degree by a trip to India. She was lost and found for the next twelve years, starting a commune and travelling the world before finally settling down to write her acclaimed debut novel, A Perfect Explanation, (Salt Books) which was long-listed for the Desmond Elliott Prize and Not The Booker Prize. Since 2022 she has built up a following on Substack where she published her memoir, A Memoir in 65 Postcards & The Recovery Diaries, and second novel, In Judgement of Others. The success of these convinced her to publish them both herself which she did in partnership with Troubador. She's currently streaming her latest novel, Fallout in weekend instalments on her Substack page The Literary Obsessive. She plans to publish it next year.
Eleanor Anstruther's books
A Memoir in 65 Postcards & The Recovery Diaries
Inspired by Julia Cameron’s classic The Artist’s Way, Eleanor set out on a project to write every morning, and crucially, to publish it on Substack that same morning; a commitment to press the button as soon as she’d finished, and before she had time to regret it. She set rules: she’d do no forward planning, she’d tell whatever story came to mind, the writing would take no longer than an hour, the reading of it, no longer than a minute. What came was A Memoir In 65 Postcards, the personal story that had been knocking about her system for well over twenty years. Questions were answered, and a puzzle was put together. Using the same rules of engagement, its follow up, The Recovery Diaries, became a deeper exploration of what emerged and how she is now.
With humour and honesty, from a pagan commune to sobriety, this collection of essays and stories form a unique exploration of wealth, survival, the questions that haunt us, and what makes us human. It’s you and me. It’s where our worlds collide.
In Judgement of Others
The Midhurst Amateur Dramatic Society are putting on a production of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, and Tessa has agreed to play a part. But when she suffers a psychotic episode, Ros, a C-list celebrity and new to the community, takes her place.
In this darkly comic tale of psychosis in the Home Counties, the stage is set for a blistering examination of mental illness, how we treat it and why we don’t. While Tessa is sectioned in a secure psychiatric hospital, the relationships in the community unravel, and by the time she’s released, all that we thought we knew, and all of our judgements, are thrown into question.
Dim the lights, turn off your phones, settle in as the curtain rises…