Damian Leighton Barr

Background

Damian Barr was born on July 20, 1976, in Newarthill, South Lanarkshire, United Kingdom.

Education

Damian received a degree from Lancaster University.

Career

Since Damian's first piece ran in the Guardian in 1996, he has written for national newspapers and magazines. He's been a columnist for the Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times and Big Issue. His highlights include: revisiting New Orleans a year after Katrina to discover why one hotel survived while all around perished, getting wet in Venice to understand why its really sinking and helping to fly a tiny plane around New Zealand for a sky safari. In 2016 Damian was Highly Commended by British Society of Magazine Editors as Columnist of the Year for his Big Issue column which covered topics as varied as fuel poverty and misogyny in politics. As Drinks Critic for the Sunday Times, he was the magazine's much-loved BarrFly from 2014. For a decade he was Literary Editor of Soho House. Damian is currently a columnist for High Life.

Barr is also creator and host of the Literary Salon, which recently celebrated its tenth birthday at a special with Tracey Thorn, Adam Kay and Rose McGowan. This project started at Shoreditch House in 2008 but now resides at the supremely storied Savoy. Salon's events are always intimate, revealing and headline-making. Its organizers pop-up all over the country and around the world partnering with brilliant brands like Corney & Barrow and the National Trust and great venues like the Ace in New York or the Balmoral in Edinburgh. In 2018 they started celebrating a different Indie Bookshop of the Month every month and are adding new features all the time. They have been covered in The Times, Telegraph, Sunday Times, Guardian, Evening Standard, New York Times, Red, Grazia, Elle and Vanity Fair.

Barr's first book, Get It Together: How To Survive Your Quarterlife Crisis, was published in 2006 by Hodder & Stoughton. It was the first book concerned with the quarter-life crisis to be published in the UK. It was inspired by a column Barr wrote for The Times in 2001 - 2003 about graduate work and life. Barr's second book is Maggie & Me, a memoir of growing up in small-town Scotland during the Thatcher years. Bloomsbury acquired the book at auction in July 2010 and it was published in the UK in April 2013. He has recently completed a novel set in South Africa, You Will be Safe Here, which is going to be released internationally in May 2019.

Damian has also co-written two plays for Radio 4 and appeared on PM, Midweek, Broadcasting House and Today as well as The Verb and as a presenter on Front Row.

Achievements

• Damian Barr is a prolific writer and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His most successful work is Maggie & Me, which won several major awards: The Political Humour and Satire Book of the Year at The Paddy Power Political Book Awards, Sunday Times Memoir of the Year and Stonewall Writer of the Year.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Get It Together: Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis

    (Researching this book Damian Barr spoke to hundreds of me...)

    2004
  • You Will Be Safe Here

    (Inspired by real events, it reveals hidden colonial histo...)

    2019
  • Maggie & Me

    (It's 12 October 1984. An IRA bomb blows apart the Grand H...)

    2013

Personality

Damian enjoys tending his little flock of chickens. He currently has three fluffy-footed pekins - Blanche, Blithe and Dolly.

Connections

Barr is openly gay. He lives in Brighton, Sussex, with his husband, ceramics artist Mike Moran.

Spouse:

Mike Moran