Harriet Armstrong was born and raised in Oxford. She has had short stories published in Confingo Magazine, The Georgia Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Giramondo's HEAT literary magazine and Forever Magazine.In Autumn 2024, aged twenty-four, she was a Resident at the Giancarlo DiTrapano Foundation for Literature and the Arts. She lives and works inLondon. To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is her first novel.

'Harriet Armstrong's singular, arresting debut... gradually flowers into something extraordinary: a feminist statement of mental unravelling, which is also a plea for the life of the mind... Marvellously realised... a study of interiority and narrative, both an embrace of and a resistance against nihilism. Armstrong has created a form away from such debasing tropes and genres as "sad girl" lit... [her] work seems both new and utterly timeless.' - Catherine Taylor, Observer'It's rare to encounter so purely candid and redolent a portrait of a life . . . the novel inspires something closer to exaltation . . . To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is a fraught chamber piece of emotional intensity: an age-old story - of the highs and lows of first love, and of a young person finding their place in the world - told in a way that feels unsettling, exciting and very fresh.' - Lucy Scholes, Daily Telegraph'Armstrong expertly adumbrates the emotional intensity and vulnerability of first love, with every page bearing a startling observation or wry aside.[...] What's compelling is that [...] the narrator has no perspective through which to filter her descent. At times the novel is unbearably intense, like experiencing the essence of obsession as it's lived in every moment -- which is not to say that it isn't also very funny. [...] While cerebral and obsessively analytical, the narrator is equally fervent about engaging with the messily somatic. [...] The final scene is as deft and devastating as the conclusion to a Cheever story. [To Rest Our Minds and Bodies] announces Armstrong as a bright and singular voice in literary fiction.' - Jude Cook, Guardian'Harriet Armstrong's To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is a true original: ambitious, stylish and wonderfully uncynical. It reads like The Bell Jar for Gen Z, a coming-of-age novel in which we're drawn deep into the volcanic interior of girlhood... luminous, unsettling and emotionally honest. Armstrong has captured not how things are, but how they feel. In doing so, she has crafted a style that is urgently contemporary and unmistakably her own.' - Ruby Eastwood, Irish Times'The syntax is unusual and highly specific, punctuated by hundreds of 'somehow's, 'actually's and 'suddenly's, as though the young narrator anticipates an incredulous reader. But the effect is to recreate the way that, at that age, it feels like everything that happens to you is happening for the first time ever.' - 'What we're reading this week - by the Times books team', Laura Hackett, The Times'An impressive debut novel, To Rest our Minds and Bodies, by Harriet Armstong, sees a neurodiverse protagonist fearlessly navigate her bewilderment at her body's sexual awakening and her mind's emotional upheavals. Another disarmingly honest take on intimate womanhood, in this case from the rare perspective of an autistic protagonist. This is a beautifully written novel by a new British talent.' - Fiona O'Connor, Morning Star, Best Books of the Year'Its subject might resemble that of many other debut novels, but Armstrong's book is distinguished by a sophisticated narrative voice, at once lucid and subtly ironic. [...] The experiences chronicled [in To Rest Our Minds and Bodies] may be those of someone in their early twenties, but this is a work of real maturity.' - Orlando Reade, Literary Review'The book [...] brilliantly focuses on what it means to simulate emotions vs. to feel emotions.[...] The story hinges on a first love-come-unrequited romantic experience [...]. This asymmetrical power dynamic, rooted in devotion, sets the novel on a path of relational uncertainty, emotional restraint, and an ongoing tension between mechanical detachment and human vulnerability.' - Review 31'Armstrong's debut is an unflinching testament to the pains of youth, told sensitively and in a manner so evocative that you'll return to it again and again.' - Frances Forbes-Carbines, wonders and wickedness'Aligns with contemporary writing such as Convenience Store Woman... The build-up of simple phrases makes for beautiful depictions of intimacy... This is deeply absorbing... The end of the novel is a tour de force.' - Fiona O'Connor, Morning Star

Harriet Armstrong was born and raised in Oxford. She has had short stories published in Confingo Magazine, The Georgia Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, Giramondo's HEAT literary magazine and Forever Magazine.In Autumn 2024, aged twenty-four, she was a Resident at the Giancarlo DiTrapano Foundation for Literature and the Arts. She lives and works inLondon. To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is her first novel.

'Harriet Armstrong's singular, arresting debut... gradually flowers into something extraordinary: a feminist statement of mental unravelling, which is also a plea for the life of the mind... Marvellously realised... a study of interiority and narrative, both an embrace of and a resistance against nihilism. Armstrong has created a form away from such debasing tropes and genres as "sad girl" lit... [her] work seems both new and utterly timeless.' - Catherine Taylor, Observer'It's rare to encounter so purely candid and redolent a portrait of a life . . . the novel inspires something closer to exaltation . . . To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is a fraught chamber piece of emotional intensity: an age-old story - of the highs and lows of first love, and of a young person finding their place in the world - told in a way that feels unsettling, exciting and very fresh.' - Lucy Scholes, Daily Telegraph'Armstrong expertly adumbrates the emotional intensity and vulnerability of first love, with every page bearing a startling observation or wry aside.[...] What's compelling is that [...] the narrator has no perspective through which to filter her descent. At times the novel is unbearably intense, like experiencing the essence of obsession as it's lived in every moment -- which is not to say that it isn't also very funny. [...] While cerebral and obsessively analytical, the narrator is equally fervent about engaging with the messily somatic. [...] The final scene is as deft and devastating as the conclusion to a Cheever story. [To Rest Our Minds and Bodies] announces Armstrong as a bright and singular voice in literary fiction.' - Jude Cook, Guardian'Harriet Armstrong's To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is a true original: ambitious, stylish and wonderfully uncynical. It reads like The Bell Jar for Gen Z, a coming-of-age novel in which we're drawn deep into the volcanic interior of girlhood... luminous, unsettling and emotionally honest. Armstrong has captured not how things are, but how they feel. In doing so, she has crafted a style that is urgently contemporary and unmistakably her own.' - Ruby Eastwood, Irish Times'The syntax is unusual and highly specific, punctuated by hundreds of 'somehow's, 'actually's and 'suddenly's, as though the young narrator anticipates an incredulous reader. But the effect is to recreate the way that, at that age, it feels like everything that happens to you is happening for the first time ever.' - 'What we're reading this week - by the Times books team', Laura Hackett, The Times'An impressive debut novel, To Rest our Minds and Bodies, by Harriet Armstong, sees a neurodiverse protagonist fearlessly navigate her bewilderment at her body's sexual awakening and her mind's emotional upheavals. Another disarmingly honest take on intimate womanhood, in this case from the rare perspective of an autistic protagonist. This is a beautifully written novel by a new British talent.' - Fiona O'Connor, Morning Star, Best Books of the Year'Its subject might resemble that of many other debut novels, but Armstrong's book is distinguished by a sophisticated narrative voice, at once lucid and subtly ironic. [...] The experiences chronicled [in To Rest Our Minds and Bodies] may be those of someone in their early twenties, but this is a work of real maturity.' - Orlando Reade, Literary Review'The book [...] brilliantly focuses on what it means to simulate emotions vs. to feel emotions.[...] The story hinges on a first love-come-unrequited romantic experience [...]. This asymmetrical power dynamic, rooted in devotion, sets the novel on a path of relational uncertainty, emotional restraint, and an ongoing tension between mechanical detachment and human vulnerability.' - Review 31'Armstrong's debut is an unflinching testament to the pains of youth, told sensitively and in a manner so evocative that you'll return to it again and again.' - Frances Forbes-Carbines, wonders and wickedness'Aligns with contemporary writing such as Convenience Store Woman... The build-up of simple phrases makes for beautiful depictions of intimacy... This is deeply absorbing... The end of the novel is a tour de force.' - Fiona O'Connor, Morning Star