Clare Wigfall is a British writer, born in Greenwich, London 1976. Her debut collection of short stories The Loudest Sound and Nothing was published by Faber and Faber in 2007 to critical acclaim.
She grew up in Berkeley, California before moving back to London. She began writing at an early age. After an early role as assistant and editor to the late President of Mensa, she graduated from the University of Manchester in 1998. She received her MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. At age 21, Faber and Faber offered her a book contract, based on reading a single story she had written. She worked on her debut collection for almost a decade.
Clare has claimed that music was a large influence in writing the debut collection. She mentions such various influences as the Dirty Three, John Fahey, Jolie Holland, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Jefferson Airplane, Cat Power, Bach, Rachel's and Six Organs of Admittance each influencing one of the stories.[1]
After stints in Morocco, Spain and Norwich she settled in Prague for a few years. She currently lives in Berlin.
Her stories have been published in Prospect, New Writing 10, Tatler, new anthology X-24: unclassified and the Dublin Review and commissioned for BBC Radio 4.
In 2008 she won the internationally renowned BBC National Short Story Award for 'The Numbers', one of the stories from her collection.[2] She was also longlisted for the 2008 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.[3]