Dr Margaretta Jolly

Dr Margaretta Jolly, University of Sussex academic and oral historian, has become a patron of Brighton community publisher QueenSpark Books.

Dr Jolly is Reader in Cultural Studies at Sussex and Director of the Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research, which has worked with QueenSpark Books in University-community events over the last 15 years.

Dr Jolly has been a fan of QueenSpark -  which publishes books, websites and photographs about the people and history of Brighton & Hove - since she discovered it in the 1990s.

Her own Sussex roots have drawn her to many of the stories of class, community and queer history that QueenSpark uncovers in its publications. As a scholar and oral historian, she also values its creative publications in life narrative.

Dr Jolly is one of three QueenSpark patrons who feel passionately enough about the publisher to lend their name to its work and to attend its public events such as launches and readings.

Another patron is Professor Dorothy Sheridan, former Head of Special Collections at Sussex and now an Honorary Professor of History and a trustee of the Mass Observation Archive. She was a member of the QueenSpark management committee from 1996-2010.

The publisher’s third patron is writer Virginia Nicholson, daughter of Quentin Bell (Professor of Art History and Theory at Sussex from 1967-75).