Stephanie Shields

Stephanie Shields writes fiction and farms in the north of England.

The past presses on the present in her novels and short stories. Profound and profane, tragic and comic, her writing is praised for pacey plots and compelling character creation, especially strong women. To date, she has written two novels, The Strange Woman (2020) and After Amba (2025), and a short story collection called Swan Landings (2017).

Stephanie is an adopted daughter of Yorkshire. Born and raised in the East Midlands, she never quite felt at home there. Her earliest memories were of Lincolnshire fenland, soon to be replaced by the softer, rolling landscape of Leicestershire. But she’s found her spiritual home in Yorkshire.

The landscape of the Washburn Valley in North Yorkshire inspires much of her writing. It’s an ancient landscape. The past lies so close to the surface. She says it is impossible to walk the fields, the moors and the steep gills and avoid the ghosts. Rock art, stone circles, cairns, ancient ways, stones worn by the sheer footfall of the generations – the folk who passed before. There’s even a healing well on her land. Each feature clamours to tell its own tale.

Writing has always been core. Stephanie has written from the age of four. When she was fifteen, her poem Washday, a feminist piece, won a Leicestershire County Arts first prize. Her very first short story was chosen by Sarah Waters for the Dancing with Mr Darcy short story collection published by Honno. More short stories flooded her mind. She collected the first batch in Swan Landings.

Two novels followed. The Strange Woman recreates the 1622 Yorkshire witch trial, the Trial of the Timble Witches. It has won readers from all over the world and enjoys something of a cult following in Yorkshire. It was a finalist in The Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2021 and has been the best-selling book at Wave of Nostalgia bookshop in Haworth for the past four years.

Newly released, After Amba is a mix of modern history - the First World War, the Jazz Age, the Second World War and aftermath - and the present day and beyond. This is a darkly funny book, already surprising and delighting her readers.