William Fiennes

William Fiennes was brought up in Oxfordshire and studied at Oxford University.

His first book, The Snow Geese, was published in 2002, and follows the migration of the snow geese from Texas to Baffin Island. It is also a meditation on the idea of 'home'. It was shortlisted for the 2002 Samuel Johnson Prize and won the 2003 Hawthornden Prize, Somerset Maugham Award and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.

His second book, The Music Room, evokes the author's childhood in an English castle with his family and his disabled brother. It was shortlisted for a number of awards, including the 2009 Costa Biography Award and the 2010 Ondaatje Prize.

He spent two years as Fellow in the Creative Arts at Wolfson College, Oxford and in 2007 became Writer-in-Residence at the American School in London and at Cranford Community College, Hounslow. He is Director and Co-Founder of the charity, First Story, which supports creativity and literacy in challenging secondary schools.

William Fiennes has also written for magazines and newspapers, including Granta, The Observer and The Times Literary Supplement. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009.