Featuring author Wendy Jones
Last updated: 09 January 2026
Wendy Jones has written many kinds of books – fiction, and for children – but she likes to tell people’s stories in their own words, and that’s something we explore in this episode of an ADEQUATE podcast.
She did that in her biography of Grayson Perry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl, and more recently in her biography of the late photographer Martin Parr, Utterly Lazy and Inattentive.
She also did it in The Sex Lives Of English Women. (Those are all affiliate links1.)
Wendy was the first person to be awarded the MA in Life Writing at the University of East Anglia. She has a PhD from Goldsmiths in Creative Writing and (Update, Jan 2026!) I’ll be teaching with her for a week at the Arvon Foundation.
In this podcast episode, we talk about what drew her to use this technique, and how she actually goes about it – the hard work, like the figure of the writer, can sometimes seem invisible.
We also talk about Studs Terkel, the American radio broadcaster and pioneer of oral history, who inspired Wendy. The Studs Terkel book Wendy mentions is When Will The Circle Be Unbroken?, and the illustrated book I describe afterwards is Working.
Wendy has also written two novels set in Narberth, Wales: The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals, and The World is a Wedding.
1 Affiliate links. If you use this link, I may be paid a fee, but it won’t cost you any more.