BIOGRAPHY & BOOKS

Philip Womack: credit Tatiana von Preussen

Philip Womack was born in Chichester in the middle of a thunderstorm in 1981. He was educated at Dorset House Preparatory School in Sussex, which was situated in a beautiful  Norman Manor house, and then at Lancing College, both set amongst the rolling South Downs. 

The College has a long-standing literary heritage, numbering Evelyn Waugh, David Hare, Christopher Hampton, Tom Sharpe and Jan Morris amongst its Old Lancingers, and Philip was also taught by a number of erudite, witty and eccentric masters (including Father John Hunwicke, obituary here.)

Philip read Classics and English at Oriel College, Oxford, (where he fell in love with Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Renaissance Drama, Catullus, Lucretius, Propertius, Homer and many others) before embarking on a very short attempt at a legal career.

Instead, he found a booth as an editorial assistant at Literary Review, and his first novel was published in 2008. After this, he became a freelance, working  for a number of organisations including the Daily Telegraph, teaching at universities, and writing.

He is the author of several critically acclaimed novels for children and one work of non-fiction for adults. He lives in London with his wife, the architect Tatiana von Preussen, three children, and a lurcher. He enjoys playing the piano, singing, and uncovering random genealogical facts, such as that the author Will Self is descended from Nathaniel Woodard, the founder of Lancing College.

 Bibliography

 The Other Book (2008)

The Liberators (2010)    

The Darkening Path trilogy:  

The Broken King (2014)
The King's Shadow (2015)
The King's Revenge (2016)

The Double Axe, a re-imagining of the minotaur myth, was published in 2016.
The Arrow of Apollo also set in the ancient world, was published in 2020 by Unbound.

How to Teach Classics to Your Dog was published in 2020 by Oneworld, an introduction to the Ancient Greeks and Romans (for adults).

 Write your Own Myths, and Write Your Own Sci Fi,  non-fiction books for children about creative writing.

 Wildlord,  published by Little Island in October - a teen fantasy novel.

Ghostlord,  published by Little Island in 2023, a teen fantasy novel in the same world as Wildlord. *** GHOSTLORD was Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week in May 2023 ***

• TO BUY PHILIP'S BOOKS IN PRINT, VISIT BOOKSHOP.ORG

  If you want to buy a book second hand, buy from Book Barn or World of Books. They are partaking in the Authorshare scheme, which pays authors a royalty on second hand sales.
  

  If you have recently bought a second hand copy of any of Philip's books elsewhere, please consider visiting Philip's Ko-fi page and making a donation.
  

SCREENPLAY

MSND, a screenplay, was commissioned by Phix Films (2018) 

 













 Philip is currently a Contributing Editor at Literary Review and writes for The Spectator and The Times Literary Supplement, among other papers. From September 2020-22, he was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow, and after that a Consultant Fellow.

He has taught workshops on Greek Myth, Greek Tragedy and How to Write Children's Fiction for the How To: Academy and was a Fellow of First Story. He taught Creative Writing at Royal Holloway and City University.

 Philip has written for a number of newspapers and magazines, including: The Financial Times, The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, The Spectator World, The Observer, The Tablet, Literary Review, The New Humanist, The Oldie Review of Books,  Cheap Date, The Guardian, The Independent, The Independent on Sunday, The Oldie, Tatler, PORT, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, Standpoint, Bookforum, The London Magazine, The Shooting Times.

Womack Staithe, Ludham, Norfolk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A NOTE ON THE SURNAME WOMACK

Womack is an ancient English surname, derived from the same word as "womb". Womack essentially means "stomach", and possibly derives from a diminutive (See the Oxford Dictionary of Surnames). (Variant spellings included Wombock, Wommock, Wembock etc., though the name is now usually only found as Womack.) It is quite a rare surname, with only around 900 current bearers in the United Kingdom, although there are more in America, descended from those who settled there in the 17th century.

Womack families have always been strongly linked to Yorkshire and Norfolk. Early Womacks are recorded in the 14th century in Yorkshire. (Johannes Wombok, 1379 in Poll Tax Barnby Dun, WR Yorks). The ecclesiastical family of Laurence Womack, Bishop of St Davids, was a prominent Royalist family in Norfolk in the 17th century. There is a memorial to the Bishop in St Margaret's Church, Westminster, and his pedigree can be viewed here. 

 

You can visit Womack Staithe, Womack Water in Norfolk. In Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons books, the children often sail through Womack Water and past Womack Dyke. The surname has also been connected to an 11th century knight named Robertus Wiuhomarch.

 

Philip Womack's branch of the Womack family has some interesting literary connections: to George Turnavine Budd, who shared a flat with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and to Sir Henry Irving, the Victorian actor manager who was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula.

 

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