About Anna McKay



Born and raised in "sunny" West Yorkshire, I avoided most of primary and secondary school and taught myself to cook instead. I braved the real world for a few years to study English and Related Literature at the University of York before staying on to complete an MA in Eighteenth Century Studies.

As a down and out, I enrolled at Leeds City College and had a fantastic year learning the fine art of patisserie from a uniquely northern perspective. After Leeds, I spent six months on the 'Street Voices' scheme, working with Freedom Studios, a Bradford-based theatre company, where my 20-minute play 'Ruthless' was performed. I was a finalist in the Northern Writer's Awards 'Writing for TV' category and enjoyed a brief foray in children's television.

From 2015-2019, I was a PhD researcher at the University of Leicester and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, working on the amazing project, 'The History of British Prison Hulks, 1776-1857'. In 2019, I undertook a short-term research fellowship at the NMM looking at prisoners of war in Canada, followed by my appointment as Pearsall Fellow in Naval and Maritime History at the Institute of Historical Research.

In a nutshell, I'm into food and narrative, and can get terribly distracted in the pursuit of both.

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