Clare Pooley

Clare Pooley is the daughter of Peter Pooley CMG, a former Director-General of the European Commission. She was educated at Roedean School[1] and Newnham College, Cambridge,[2] from which she graduated with a degree in Economics.

Pooley first pursued a career in advertising at J. Walter Thompson, in due course becoming a Managing Partner and Group Head, before leaving the work-place on the birth of her third child.[3]

In 2015, Pooley began a blog, Mummy was a Secret Drinker, about her life following a resolution to give up alcohol. She blogged under a pseudonym until the announcement of her first book deal in September 2017.[4]

Pooley’s first book, The Sober Diaries, was a narrative of her first year of sobriety and also included an account of her successful battle to overcome breast cancer.[5]

In October 2018, it was announced that Pooley’s fictional debut, The Authenticity Project, had been the subject of a six-way auction, with Transworld securing UK and Commonwealth rights, Penguin Random House acquiring the US rights, and foreign rights sold in 16 other languages.[6]

Pooley is married to John Stevenson-Hamilton.[7] The couple live in London and have three children.

• Mummy was a Secret Drinker, Clare Pooley’s blog.