Interview with screenwriter and presenter Syd Moore

Syd Moore is a writer, presenter, screenwriter, curator and Royal Literary Fund Fellow.

Best known for her Essex Witch Museum Mysteries (Strange Magic, Strange Sight, Strange Fascination, Strange Tombs and later in 2020, Strange Tricks) that feature Rosie Strange and Sam Stone and were shortlisted for the Good Reader Holmes and Watson Award 2018 she has also written short stories - The Twelve Strange Days of Christmas (2019) was shortlisted for a prestigious ‘dagger award’ by the Crime Writers Association.

Her debut screenplay, Witch West, which she developed from an original idea, has been optioned by Hidden Door Productions with director, Jane Gull (My Feral Heart), at the helm. Filming for Witch West was due to start filming in Spring 2020 Moore has also written a thematically linked screenplay, Witch East, which looks at sex trafficking due to belief in witchcraft.

Moore is the Assistant Curator of ABBA: Super Troupers The Exhibition that launched at the O2 in December 2019. She has also co-curated the This is What an Essex Girl Looks Like exhibition at the Beecroft Gallery, as part of her work with the Essex Girls Liberation Front.

In 2019 Moore became a Royal Literary Fund Fellow and works with students in Cambridge helping them with all aspects of writing from doctoral theses to undergraduate essays.

For nine years prior to writing Syd was a lecturer, and she worked extensively in the publishing industry and presented Channel 4’s book programme, Pulp. She was the founding editor of Level 4, an arts and culture magazine, co-creator of Superstrumps, the game that reclaims female stereotypes. In 2017 she founded The Essex Girls Liberation Front and has spoken on radio, television, universities, political panels and festivals about the stereotype and problems that face women today.

She is also a UK ambassador for the Danish charity which helps Nigerian ‘witch’ children, DINNødhjælp, and speaks regularly with Kirsty Brimelow QC, a legal Consultant to Unicef and former legal lead for the United Nations Bar. In 2018 she was appointed Writer-in-Residence for the Essex Book Festival.

Her writing has been described as ‘Dennis Wheatley meets Caitlin Moran’ (Starburst Magazine).