Lela Tredwell is a prize-winning author and researcher living on the South Coast of England. She writes in a range of forms, both fiction and non-fiction, but is particularly inspired by stories of survival, visions of the future, and folktales. Winner of Word Factory’s Fables for a Modern World Short Story Competition, her short fiction has also been commended in The Orwell Society’s Dystopian Short Story Award, shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, and longlisted for The Fish Publishing Short Story Prize.

First runner-up in the Pinch Literary Awards (judged by Carmen Maria Machado), she has also received an honorable mention in The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Eleven (edited by Ellen Datlow). She was a finalist in Aesthetica Creative Writing Award for her story about an abusive microwave and was granted Editor’s Pick for a tale featured in Aestas Anthology, where her work was described as “unflinching, unenjoyable, and brilliantly accomplished.”

Her essays of recommendation have been published by Thresholds International Short Story Forum and she is a reviewer of short fiction for publication for Gramarye, the journal produced by The Chichester Centre for Fairytales, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction in association with Chichester University.

Echoing her fictional works, resilience has also been a recurring theme in her non-fiction. She is the author of Providing the Jam, a heritage book which tells the story of a visually impaired community and spans over 100 years. Her proceeding book, published at the end of 2020, Safe Havens by the Sea (co-written with historian Chris Hare), delves into the history of an iconic building, which stood until very recently on the Sussex Coast. Originally part of a group of convalescent homes, it gave children from the 19th Century polluted and poverty-stricken streets of North East London a chance to breathe.

Further examples of Lela’s non-fiction writing – including articles on sea monsters, lost species, and seaweed – can be found published both in print and online with Ernest Journal, the publication of slow travel, exploration art, and curious histories for which she was Production Manager.

Lela is a regular reviewer of theatre for The Reviews Hub. A graduate of dramatic writing and Bryony Kimming’s ‘Autobiographical Theatre’ course, she has long-held a passion for the stage. She brought the co-creation Beige Mirror to The Brighton Fringe and was the director of the comedy horror Shed in the Thicket. She has collaborated on shows internationally, including a series of dark fairytales – depicting murderous gingerbread men, sinister mermaids, and socially awkward triffids – and participated in a study for the University of Kent into virtual performance. For stage and screen, she has created a plethora of science fiction and speculative futures as Assimilate, recommended as “one of Brighton’s best improv comedy duos”, and described as more The Peripheral or The Bed Sitting Room than The Road, “uplifting and life affirming”.

She has been awarded a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing, a PGCE in Post Compulsory Education, and a Diploma in Cryptozoology, the hunt for hidden monsters. She is currently working on a short story collection and her debut novel.

You can read a short interview with Lela for Pinch Journal here.