Jody Cooksley

Jody Cooksley is a writer based in Surrey. A trained journalist, Jody’s career has spanned writing in all its forms – media, publishing, PR and communications. She has held Managing Director roles, is a coach and mentor to young women in communications and works with the National Literary Trust as part of her role as Director of External Relations at Cranleigh Schools.

Jody studied literature at Oxford Brookes University and has a Masters in Victorian Poetry. Her debut novel The Glass House is a fictional account of the life of pioneer nineteenth-century photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, praised for ‘capturing the spirit of a remarkable artist’ by Art Historian, Colin Ford CBE. Her second novel, How to Keep Well in Wartime, was hailed as ‘a powerful and finely crafted novel, exploring how we deal with grief, relationships and mental health,’ by author Tracey Iceton. Both are published by Cinnamon Press.

The Small Museum, Jody’s third novel, is a return to the Victorian period that she loves. A darkly gothic tale of unthinkable crimes, it won the 2023 Caledonia Novel Award and is published by Allison&Busby in May 2024. They also bought the seuqle in a two-book deal. She is working on a third, unrelated, Victorian gothic crime. Jody loves dark stories that are chilling but that also stretch the edges of the imagination. She is a night owl and often writes in the middle of the night, which lends itself to creepy atmospheric writing.

Jody is originally from Norwich and now lives in Cranleigh with her husband, teenage sons, massive cats and a dangerously high TBR pile.