Olivia Laing is a well-known author and critic. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Frieze, and the New York Times, among other media. She was the 2014 Eccles Writer in Residence at the British Library and is a Yaddo and MacDowell Fellow. To the River was nominated for the Ondaatje Award and the Dolman Travel Book of the Year by the Royal Society of Literature. The Journey to Echo Spring, her second book, was a finalist for the 2013 Costa Biography Award and the 2014 Gordon Burn Prize, and The Lonely City was a finalist for the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize. She is a Cambridge resident.