Sue Shephard was born in London and spent much of her life there until she and her family moved to Bristol in 1995. She was an award-winning television producer and a commissioning editor at Channel 4 until she switched to being a full-time writer. Several of her TV series explored the culture and history of food and gardening, so it was natural for her to dig deeper in this popular area when she became a writer.
UNITED TASTES OF AMERICA was published by Ebury in 1997 to accompany the TV series. PICKLED POTTED & CANNED, a history of food preserving, was published in 2000 by Headline in the UK and Simon & Schuster in the USA. It had terrific reviews and received the Andre Simon Special Award in 2001. SEEDS OF FORTUNE – A Gardening Dynasty about a Victorian horticultural nursery and their plant hunters was published by Bloomsbury in both the UK and USA in 2003 to considerable acclaim.
Sue’s latest book is THE SURPRISING LIFE OF CONSTANCE SPRY: a biography of the great flower arranger. It is published by Macmillan in April 2010 and has already attracted considerable press attention with author appearances at several literary festivals.
Sue is currently working on a biography of Dorothy Hartley, the food and agricultural historian. She lives in Bristol with her husband Ben Shephard who is also a writer and historian. His book THE LONG ROAD HOME has also just been published.
Books in order of publication:
Pickled, Potted, and Canned: How the Art and Science of Food Preserving Changed the World – 2000
Seeds of Fortune -2003
The Surprising Life of Constance Spry – 2010
From Cod to Callaloo: The Story of Bristol Through Food and Wine – 2013
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