Hello
I was born in Essex and grew up on Ynys Mon. I came to the city of Newcastle upon Tyne to study English literature and have lived and worked here mostly ever since. I’ve always written – poems, stories, journals and random scraps. A thought is almost not real until it’s pinned on paper.
My Story
Over the years I’ve written short stories, a crime novel and a number of novels for children, including Dark Flood, winner of the Hachette Prize for children’s fiction in 2022 and due to be published in 2024. Stella Starbright was given the Andrea Badenoch Award 2017 for YA fiction, but has yet to find its home.
I also write short stories for adults and have written an article for Mslexia Magazine (2017).
In my spare time, I love to read and garden, swim in the sea, go walking and explore history. My children now find it amusing that while their friends were taken to Disney Land, I took them to the Tomb of the Eagles on Orkney and Bryn Cellu Ddu burial chamber on Ynys Mon. I enjoy ‘thin’ places where the past and the present seem very close. I like writing about the moment when the ordinary suddenly becomes not.
I’m inspired by nature but also furious at what I have seen happen over my lifetime. I have recently contributed to the ‘Writing the Climate’ poetry collaborations by Linda France. I’ve just finished walking the Ynys Mon coastal path (in bits over a long time scale) and am writing a walking memoir.
I’m an English teacher, Dyslexia specialist and SENCo for a small FE college and have taught creative writing in the community learning programme. My own writing has been supported by the Gosforth writing group and by New Writing North. The thing I’m most proud of is not giving up when the rejections pile up.
I’m part of Heaton Baptist Church and have been involved with a range of community projects in the city. Community builds culture and culture feeds community. I live in a slightly chaotic house with some other humans and a white rabbit called Yokka, who has more social media followers than I do.
I’m proud to come from a working class, neuro-diverse family and I believe in the power of stories!