Rosie Boycott
Rosie Boycott was one of the founders of Spare Rib magazine and Virago Press. She has been the editor of Esquire magazine, The Independent on Sunday, The Independent and The Daily Express. At this year’s Port Eliot Festival she’ll be reading from, as well as discussing, her moving and powerful memoir on alcoholism, A Nice Girl Like Me.
Rosie is a frequent contributor to the Late Review, Woman’s Hour and the Politics Show and has previously taken the reigns of her own TV venture, BBC2’s Life Etc. Exchanging life in front of the camera for life behind a desk her two books to date explore both the beauty and brutality of human existence.
A Nice Girl Like Me is her story of alcohol abuse and recovery, going from the top to the bottom and back again, in the wild and fragmented 1970s; a book for anyone who wants a second chance at life. Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes explores that second chance, a year in the life on Rosie’s smallholding in Somerset. Consider both sides of the coin when Rosie comes to Port Eliot this year.
“The most unflinching personal account of addiction that I have read… Boycott is generous, brave, and hugely compelling.”
Sophie Dahl
“Written with the pacy swing of intelligent literate journalism… fast and bizarre enough fro top selling fiction, but there’s the voyeur addition of knowing it’s true.”
The Guardian
“Rosie was as forthright and fearless a writer then as she is today. I was completely fascinated by her story.”
Maureen Lipman
