Description
Discover the fascinating connection between J.B. Priestley and Malachi Whitaker, two remarkable Bradford writers, in this insightful talk by Valerie Waterhouse, Whitaker’s literary executor.
Learn about Whitaker’s acclaimed short stories, Priestley’s literary legacy, and their famous 1930s meeting at Bradford’s Midland Hotel.
Waterhouse, a PhD researcher at Salford University, recently wrote the afterword to the new edition of Whitaker’s memoir And So Did I and brings unique insight shaped by her West Yorkshire roots. A must for fans of literary history and forgotten voices worth rediscovering.
About the Speaker
Valerie Waterhouse
Valerie Waterhouse is a PhD Researcher at the University of Salford, writing a biography of Bradford author Malachi Whitaker (1895-1976). She is the Literary Executor for Whitaker’s estate. In 2025, she was awarded the inaugural Biographers International Organization Kitty Kelley Dissertation Fellowship, for her ongoing biographical work. She is the author of the Afterword for the new edition of Whitaker’s 1939 memoir , And So Did I . In 2019, with Bradford Civic Society, she co-organised the installation of a Blue Plaque at Whitaker’s birthplace house in Wrose. Later this year, she will be delivering a lecture on Whitaker for Cambridge University’s Literature Cambridge Online. She grew up in West Yorkshire and previously spoke about Whitaker at Bradford Literature Festival in 2018.
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