helena frith powell

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Category: Ballet

Roaming emotions

18th May 2010

This morning on the treadmill at the gym I suddenly found myself in tears watching a concert on Arte of Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet. It has been a morning like most others, everyone is fine, and this afternoon we have a press trip to Atlantis to look fo …

Two of my favourite things…

7th March 2010

So my Zeldafication begins in earnest on Tuesday when I go to an advanced adult ballet class with our lovely new lodger Una, who was at ballet school until she was 14. Yes I know that I am not advanced, but did that ever stop Zelda? So wish me luck. Me …

New Year, new name….

10th January 2010

One of the results of making friends with my aunt again is that I am back in the will. I hasten to add that I am only back in the will because she tried to leave her money to my children, bypassing me, but was told they would have to pay inheritance ta …

Everything you always wanted to know about the environment…..

11th June 2009

….but were afraid to ask is in this excellent film: www.youtube.com/homeproject. Watch it, it is compelling and very scary. Added to which the filming is stunning. I am in Paris which has to be the most lovely city on earth. I came over the interview …

How much ballet can you see in one day?

26th March 2009

The answer is a lot. Yesterday I took the day off work, collected the children from school at midday and went off to see the Bolshoi rehearse Giselle at the Emirates Palace Hotel. It was wonderful. The director was shouting instructions in Russian and …

Tomorrow, tomorrow….

14th February 2009

When I was little I wanted to be an actress. “You don’t want to do that,” my mother said. “It’s just a lot of waiting around.” Yesterday I saw just how much waiting around is involved. I took the girls to audition for the musical Annie in Dubai. We got …

Expat Children Syndrome

8th January 2009

One of the things I noticed about coming back to Abu Dhabi was how much more settled (and nicer) the children are being. It seems to me that going home to Sainte Cecile and realising it is all still there and not about to go away has made them more set …

Sunday is the new Monday

8th September 2008

Proof, if it was needed, that my neural pathways are well and truly blocked comes from the fact that I am finding it impossible to get my head around Sunday being Monday. Today (Monday), for example, feels like Tuesday and I woke up thinking about all …

How low can you go?

5th September 2008

I am hoping I have hit the low point. After yet another night of no sleep, a bean-bag exploding all over Amanda’s flat and no response from my high-powered contact, I was told the ballet class I wanted the girls to go to was full. I did what any normal …

Move over Zelda

26th May 2008

When Zelda Fitzgerald (wife of F. Scott) was 27 she took up ballet. Not in any casual way you understand, like someone of a certain age might take up golf, but obsessively. She became totally focused on a career as a ballerina, training for up to eight …

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

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