Katharine has worked as a TV reporter, producer and print journalist. She is regularly interviewed by print, TV and radio, mostly about disability, Gypsies and Travellers and other social affairs issues such as adoption. She also speaks regularly at international conferences and festivals, chairing and appearing on panels. Most recently she has acted as a consultant for and took part in a radio documentary for Whistledown Productions on the eviction of Dale Farm for Radio 4; was interviewed by BBC Woman’s Hour about adult adoptees and health; and appeared on a Channel 5 documentary series about murders of disabled people.
Katharine is currently researching two documentaries which are in active development, one in Ireland and one in the UK. She has also previously reported on current affairs programmes including BBC Newsnight and BBC Inside Out.
Recent events include book events about her latest novel, as well as events about journalism. Katharine did a remote talk for the National Gallery called Every Society Needs a Scapegoat, attended by nearly 1000 visitors in November 2020, as part of its Sin exhibition series. You can read a transcript of it here. In 2019 Katharine chaired an event at the Wellcome Trust for its disability series, discussing representations of disabled people. Earlier in 2019 Katharine spoke on a panel at the Free Word Centre for English Pen and the Society of Authors, with Blake Morrison and Nicola Solomon, discussing life writing.
She has also spoken at journalism events in both the UK and abroad, including a 2018 event for the investigative journalism organisation, Outriders, in Warsaw, Poland.
She loves speaking and chairing book events. In 2017 she chaired a panel at the Killer Women crime festival in London on the Changing Crimescape. In 2015 she was a part of a panel launching the Iranian author Nina Ansary’s book about Iranian women at Foyles Bookshop in London.
She is interviewed regularly on TV and radio, ranging from discussing hate crime for the BBC to the low levels of book ownerships in some households on Sky Sunrise, to violent disability hate crime for Channel Five.
In 2014 she also gave a keynote speech at the Council of Europe, on violence against women, which you can read here.
She has spoken at the Hay, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol, Bath, Brympton and many other festivals about her books and journalism.
If you want to have a look at some of the previous documentaries Katharine has been involved with, there is a small selection here.
Films reported or produced by Katharine Quarmby.
Iranian Brides, BBC 1, Inside Out strand, November 2010, (as reporter)
Other films include:
– Valentina’s Story: Panorama, BBC, 1997 (Bafta award-winner, assistant producer)
– The Children of Benbekira: Newsnight, BBC, 1999 (One World Trust award, nominated for an Amnesty award, producer)
– Science output: Newsnight, BBC, 1999 (winner of the RTS science award, one of the two science producers)
– The Dark Ages: Panorama, BBC, 2002 (producer)
– Behind the Hatred: Discovery Channel, 2002 (producer)
– Bitter Harvest: three part series on biotechnology, BBC Two, 2003 (successfully pitched the series to the BBC, was development producer and producer)
– RSPCA Investigation: BBC Newsnight, 2005 (reporter)
Katharine Quarmby 
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