'Gutsy, entertaining and thought-provoking, a valuable meditation on the origins and politics of what we call ourselves, on what is both lost and gained in naming’ – Diana Evans

Camilla Balshaw is an author and teaches memoir and creative non-fiction at Faber Academy and the National Centre of Writing in Norwich. She holds an MA (Distinction) in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths. Her work has been published in the Guardian and The Observer. In 2020, she was longlisted for the Fish Prize and shortlisted for Penguin Random House WriteNow. When she is not writing, Camilla teaches yoga and is the co-director of the Norfolk Yoga Centre. Camilla will talk about how our given and chosen names come to shape our lives. Named, her fascinating and intimate exploration of naming through global cultural history, won the Memoir and Biography category in the 2025 East Anglian Book Awards.