Born in London, Gillian is the author of novels, biographies and plays for radio and television, including the BBC screenplay Day After the Fair, an adaption of a Thomas Hardy short story. She wrote the scenarios for Kenneth MacMillan’s Mayerling and Isadora for The Royal Ballet and Lynn Seymour’s Intimate Letters for SWRB.

Her film credits include The Leather Boys, directed by Sidney Furie, and That Cold Day in the Park, directed by Robert Altman, for whom she adapted her novel An Easter Egg Hunt. She collaborated with her husband Edward Thorpe on the book Ballet Genius. Her latest novel But Nobody Lives in Bloomsbury was published by Arcadia books in January 2007.