Sophie Haydock

Sophie Haydock hadn’t known much about the Austrian artist Egon Schiele when she accepted a friend’s invitation to the “once in a lifetime” Radical Nude exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London, 2015. Years earlier, while studying English and French at Leeds university, she’d taped a postcard of one of Schiele’s most famous artworks to the wall above her desk – Seated Woman with Bent Knee, painted in 1917. She’d look at it regularly, but never thought all too deeply about the young woman holding the provocative pose. At the London exhibition, Sophie discovered the woman was Adele Harms. She soon discovered the names Gertrude Schiele, Vally Neuzil and Edith Harms, all of whom posed for the artist more than 100 years ago. Soon afterwards, having been inspired by their untold stories, she began writing her debut novel, The Flames.

In 2018, The Flames won the Impress Prize for New Writers. In the same year, the opening sections of the novel were longlisted for the Retreat West First Chapter and shortlisted for the PENfro Book Festival’s First Chapter Competition. 

Sophie is a journalist, writing for publications such as the Sunday Times, the Guardian, Royal Academy and Sotheby’s. She also works as a digital editor for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award and is associate director of the Word Factory short story organisation. Her Instagram account @egonschieleswomen has over 90,000 followers.

The Flames was published by Doubleday in March 2022.