Stephanie Williams was born in Canada, the daughter of an army officer. Her mother was born in China, to an Englishman and a young Russian refugee who had escaped the brutality of the Bolshevik revolution. Stephanie grew up moving constantly across Canada, Europe and the United States, before taking a degree in history at Wellesley College, Massachusetts and becoming a London-based journalist. When perestroika came to Russia it was possible to begin to investigate the truth of her Russian grandmother's tumultuous past. Researching and writing Olga's Story took ten years.
Stephanie's latest book, Running the Show: Governors of the British Empire, was inspired by the discovery of an 1879 questionnaire that revealed the extraordinary variety of conditions under which British governors and their families were living around the world. Drawing on a vast range of unpublished letters, diaries and official dispatches, the book presents a kaleidoscope of people, places and events. Her website is www.stephanie-williams.com