Louise Minchin presents Lorraine
She was a BBC Breakfast favourite who appeared on the series for 20 years before quitting in 2021. Since then, Louise Minchin has enjoyed a career as an author as well as other TV projects like stand-in host for ITV's Lorraine.
Now the 55-year-old, who is behind the book Fearless: Adventures With Extraordinary Women, has landed a new role alongside another TV favourite.
Louise, whose brand new novel is called Isolation Island, has been signed up as the main event for this autumn's Isle of Wight Literary Festival, which runs from October 3 to 6. She will appear at the three-day event at Northwood House in Cowes alongside Clare Balding.
Countdown star Susie Dent and This Morning regular Gyles Brandreth will also be among the starry line-up, reports The Sun.
Whilst Isolation Island is Louise's debut novel, it is not the first time she has turned her hand to writing books over the past few years.
In 2019, she published her first non-fiction book - Dare to Tri - about her experiences of training to become a triathlete. She followed it up last year with another work of non-fiction called Fearless.
Louise said it was inspired by a moment when she was presenting BBC Breakfast and realised that the majority of times she interviewed people about epic stories they were men.
She said: "It made me ask two questions: was it that women weren’t climbing the highest mountains, running the furthest distances and setting Guinness World Records? Or was it that we just weren’t talking to them? The book is the answer to both of those questions. It (Fearless) is a celebration of women who are doing heroic things, taking on huge challenges, setting world records and breaking down stereotypes in sport."
Meanwhile, Isolation Island is understood to be loosely based on Louise's time in I'm A Celebrity in 2021. The novel follows 10 fictional famous faces as they jet off to a remote and secluded island off the coast of Scotland.
Louise appeared on the ITV series alongside the likes of Arlene Phillips, Richard Madeley and Frankie Bridge when it was based at Gwyrch Castle in Wales rather than in the Australian jungle due to Covid.
She as voted out after 17 days after taking on a plank walk 250 metres above a lake, being doused in cockroaches and mealworms as well as surviving Storm Arwen.
Louise describes the book's fictional show as the most gruelling but also the most lucrative survival show ever devised.
Louise was chosen to be the chair for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2023.
