Kit de Waal is an award-winning writer. She was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother who was a childminder and foster carer and a Caribbean father.

Her debut novel My Name is Leon won the 2016 Irish Novel of the Year and was adapted for the BBC. Other works include The Trick to Time (2018), Becoming Dinah (2019), Supporting Cast (2020). She crowdfunded Common People, an anthology of working class memoir by new and established writers.

She has written for BBC Radio 4, The Old Vic and The Abbey Theatre, Dublin and co-wrote The Third Day for SKY/HBO/Plan B with Dean O’Loughlin and Dennis Kelly. She co-founded the Primadonna Festival in 2019 and in response to the Covid-19 crisis, she founded the Big Book Weekend, a free virtual literary festival which had an audience of 24,000. In 2019 she was named Future Book Person of the Year.

Kit is a Director of Portopia Productions, a Film, TV and Digital media production company based in the Midlands, focussed on nurturing diverse talent. She provides regular masterclasses for Arvon, Birmingham City University, Birkbeck University, Irish Writers’ Centre, University of Wolverhampton, The Word Factory and many others. She is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Limerick.

She knits, swears and supports Birmingham City, often at the same time.