Author, Playwright, Journalist
William Cash is a multi-award-winning journalist, author, playwright and screenwriter whose awards include Writer of the Year (2022) at the PPA Independent Publisher Awards. He has twice won Editor of the Year.
After reading English Literature at Cambridge, Cash lived in Los Angeles working as a foreign correspondent for The Times and Daily Telegraph, covering such stories as the OJ Simpson trial, the LA riots, executions and US presidential elections. He was also American Correspondent-at-large for the Daily Mail. His literary mentors included Graham Greene and Tom Wolfe who both praised Cash’s early writing.
Whilst living in LA, Cash’s articles were optioned by Hollywood production companies. His first play, The Green Room, a dark sexual comedy about the unlikely friendship between the philandering Oxford philosopher AJ Ayer and a Jesuit priest, opened at the Cockpit Theatre in London and was a Critics’ Choice of The Observer at the Edinburgh Festival.
The play was directed and produced by Ranald Graham, the ‘showrunner’ (creator, producer and writer) of the hit ITV oddball cop TV series Dempsey & Makepeace. Graham and Cash then worked together as writing partners on a number of TV projects. He has also co-written scripts with Tony Macnabb, a TV writer for Bergerac who also taught at the National Film and Television School.
From 2001 to 2005, Cash worked as a high society magazine writer for the Evening Standard. He was then founder and editor-in-chief of Spear’s business and wealth magazine, a European rival to Forbes where he won his first PPA award as Editor. He successfully sold the magazine to the New Statesman Media Group. He has also edited the Annabel’s Magazine for the 15,000 members of the Birley group of private member clubs. He is a former chairman (2018-2023) and editor-in-chief (2021 to 2024) of the Catholic Herald.
Cash is now a freelance screenwriter, author and journalist who writes mainly for The Spectator and Daily Telegraph. He has also written for Sunday Times Magazine, New Statesman and The Observer and reviewed for the TLS. His books include The Third Woman (Little, Brown), a biography of Graham Greene and his inspiration for The End of the Affair and Educating William: Memoirs of a Hollywood Correspondent (Simon & Schuster). His last memoir, Restoration Heart (Little, Brown) was described by Tatler as ‘Laugh-out-loud funny … a delightful story of love, hope and redemption by one of the foremost society writers of our day’.
William speaks at literary festivals and appears regularly as a guest on TV and radio including twice on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week. He is represented by Matthew Hamilton at the Hamilton Agency (thehamiltonagency.co.uk).