Sylvia Kent, Women's History Month

Having been persuaded by a work colleague to go local for Women's History Month we had displays for local writer, Sylvia Kent and N. Shelley, Billericay fashion retail pioneer.

Sylvia Kent is a freelance writer and author of 12 published books and contributions to 8 anthologies. She has written for 90 magazines and has had more than 4,000 features published in magazines and newspapers, many as part of her columns for The Echo, Chronicle, Brentwood Gazette and Essex Life Magazine among many other periodicals specialising in history, gardening, winemaking, and folklore. 

Sylvia is archivist and vice-president of the Society of Women Writers and Journalists (SWWJ).  She is also a Fellow of their society and President of the Brentwood Writers’ Circle which started in 1941. Sylvia is also a patron of the Essex Book Festival and a trustee of the local John Baron Fun Walk charity. She is a founding member of the Billericay BookTalk reading group that started in July 2000. The group celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and they have read hundreds of books. Members meet in Billericay Library on the second Tuesday of the month. 

Among Sylvia's achievements, she has won the Sir Harry Brittain Scholarship for Journalism in 2008, and four other silver cups from the SWWJ for non-fiction features, plus Freelance Journalist of the Year competition which was organised by the Writing Magazine in 1998, followed by the Writing Magazine's Community Award Cup in 2004. 

Sylvia often appears on radio. She was previously heard on BBC Essex Tea At Three, BBC4, BBC Wales and BBC Gloucester and for the last sixteen years has contributed to Phoenix FM’s presenter, Michelle Ward’s morning programme Book Club.

Brentwood in 50 Buildings is Sylvia’s latest publication by Amberley of Gloucester and she is currently working on a book, which includes her own photographs and highlighting numerous notable people she has met, including members of our royal family, actors, entertainers, and numerous children's writers, including Enid Blyton, Jilly Cooper and Julia Donaldson among others. 

Sylvia previously worked for Hansard (Official Report) in the UK Westminster Parliament for 26 years typing the parliamentary debates. In 1990 she worked for Lord Henry Plumb in London’s Queen Anne's Gate.  

In 1992 Sylvia helped start the Brentwood University of the Third Age (U3A). On a writing course she met Mary Bourne, a Times journalist who suggested sending an article to The Lady magazine. This was published and led her to become a columnist for wine-making journals and this is where her adventures in writing really began!   

(The 12th publication was an inhouse one for a company and there is no image for it at the present).