Helena De Tiège

OCLW’s Global Majority and Underrepresented Writers’ Programme is a highly competitive initiative offering eight scholarships to life-writers whose voices have historically been marginalised in publishing and academia. Alongside dedicated seminars and lectures, scholars receive skills training, mentorship, and community support. The Programme aims to ensure that the future of life-writing more fully reflects the broad and diverse range of voices that surround us.

Agents and publishers are warmly encouraged to contact scholars directly.

Helena De Tiège is a writer and linguist with a multicultural background, currently based in Galicia, Spain. Her writing practice draws on years of travel across borders and through languages, informed by a longstanding interest in the interplay between language, gender, and identity. Inspired by authors such as Deborah Levy, Miranda July, and Leonora Carrington, Helena approaches life-writing as an act of courage and connection. For Helena, life-writing gives voice to that which resists dominant narratives and alleviates the isolation of contemporary life through shared storytelling.

Project Details:

During her time at OCLW, Helena will be developing her second novel, Taste, for publication. Taste is a hybrid life-writing project that explores illness and isolation, blending introspection with broader social critique. The narrative explores physical decline as an invisible war, set against wider backdrops of conflict, migration, and systemic abandonment. At its heart, the novel examines the human desire for connection and the resilience required in its absence. Helena is looking forward to making the most of the Programme’s opportunities for mentorship, feedback, and creative exchange.

Selected Publications/Projects:

Helena’s work has appeared in Vertigo Magazine and Creative Week (UK), as well as in exhibition catalogues in Germany. She has written several screenplays, with work featured at the East End Film Festival, Turn the Page Artist Book Fair, and Book Week Scotland. Her first novel, Human Playground—currently unpublished—follows the story of Soledad, a recluse with a troubled past who finds solace in making audio recordings of her surroundings. The novel blends literary fiction with character study.

Helena also writes under the pseudonym Phyla on Substack, where she explores gendered experiences of chronic illness.

Contact Details:                   

Email: helena.detiege@gmail.com