About

Helen Lewis is a staff writer at the Atlantic, and the host of BBC Radio 4’s The New Gurus, Orwell vs Kafka, Strong Message Here and Helen Lewis Has Left The Chat. Her weekly newsletter, The Bluestocking, can be found on Substack.

She was formerly deputy editor at the New Statesman and the 2018/19 Women in the Humanities Honorary Writing Fellow at Oxford University. Her first book, Difficult Women, was a Sunday Times bestseller and a Guardian, Times, Telegraph and Financial Times book of the year. Her second book, The Genius Myth, was also a Sunday Times bestseller, and was published simultaneously in the US.

Helen has also written for British Elle, the New York Times, Vogue, the Financial Times, the Observer, the Times and the Guardian. She is a frequent panellist on BBC One’s Have I Got News For You and a regular guest on the Private Eye podcast, Page 94. She appeared on Adam Buxton’s podcast in July 2020 and November 2024. Her GQ interview with Jordan Peterson received more than 69 million views.

Helen studied English at Oxford University, 2001-2004, and studied for an MA in English Literature from the Open University while working night shifts in her first job. She served for many years on the steering committee for the Reuters Institute for Journalism. 

Her literary agent is Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency and her screen agent is Jessica Sykes at Independent Talent Group.