Kate Morrison was awarded Arts Council funding in 2012 to complete her first novel. Set in the 16th century, it tells the story of a West African girl, brought to England as a baby, who marries into the print trade and finds herself drawn into an underworld of espionage and religious controversy. She was mentored by Ros Barber, award-winning author of The Marlowe Papers, and is represented by Judith Murray at Greene & Heaton. She won second prize in the 2011 Asham Award, the UK’s foremost award for unpublished women writers, and her short ghost story, ‘Sam Brown’, appears in Virago's Asham Award anthology Something Was There. She is a Visiting Scholar at Bath Spa University's 'Book, Text and Place 1500 - 1750' research centre.