Shirley Dent is Communications Director for the Institute of Ideas, the Battle of Ideas and development editor of Culture Wars, the reviews website of the Institute of Ideas. Shirley researched the editorial and bibliographic history of William Blake's works for her PhD, and co-authored a book on the subject with Jason Whittaker, Radical Blake: Afterlife and Influence from 1827. She is writing an essay on the critic and editor Anne Gilchrist for the collection Women Read William Blake: 'Opposition is True Friendship.' Previously, Dent was assistant editor of the New Humanist magazine, and Head of Communications at the Policy Studies Institute.