Worldwide publication for Class of 2012's Ella Bucknall

Illustrator and writer Ella Bucknall, who left CHS in 2012, has celebrated recent success with the news that her graphic biography of Virginia Woolf will be published in the UK in the summer of 2024. Rights have also been won for publication in the US, France, Spain, Germany and Brazil.

We asked Ella how she felt when she found out the news, 'I'm so delighted that my graphic biography of Virginia Woolf is going to be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. They are a wonderful publisher who champion exciting new forms and I know that my book will be in very good hands there. I'm also thrilled that it will be published by Pantheon in the US (who have published Maus by Art Spiegelman and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, amongst other ground-breaking graphic works) and that it will be translated in France, Spain, Germany and now Brazil! I have a lot to thank CHS for. My English and Art teachers were brilliant and always nurtured my creativity. Winning the Alan Kelk Award for Creative Writing when I was in Upper Sixth also inspired me to pursue a creative career.'

After leaving CHS Ella studied English Literature at Oxford University where she continued to draw in her spare time and took life drawing classes at the Ruskin School of Art. On graduation she went on to do a Masters in Illustration at Camberwell College of Arts in London and is now studying for a PhD in creative writing at King's College London. You can see more of her work, including illustrations from her work on Virginia Woolf, on her website: https://www.ellabucknall.com/