I am the author of a Young Adult trilogy – Paper Boats & Butterflies – an adventure story with dystopian touches.

My current novel, Hearsay, is for an adult audience with three voices across three eras: World War 1, Paris in the 19th and 20th Centuries and various places in the UK in the 1980s. Each voice is linked by a chess set, having been inspired by seeing a set in an antique shop where a young soldier had given a pawn to his mother and one to his sweetheart to show he would return from the trenches. This left me pondering – if he returned, why was it still incomplete?

Research always underpins my inspiration. For this novel, the Imperial War Museum and Wrest Park, Bedfordshire, and advice from a published historian have been excellent sources of research alongside my own knowledge from growing up in Shropshire and living in London in the 1980s. As my YA trilogy theme was nature and nurture, I studied various aspects of psychology and experiments on twins. Other investigations led to the trilogy having references to ‘1984’ and George Orwell, the English Civil War, and the Gunpowder Plot.

My background in teaching English and drama has enabled me to create a scheme of work for key stage 3 students to accompany book one of the YA trilogy. Visiting schools giving creative writing workshops during author visits has been fantastic. For the past six years I ran a successful tutoring business, Lighthouse Learning. In March 2023, I was the guest speaker at the Bucks Book Awards; a great honour to speak to students and staff from schools throughout Buckinghamshire. I have been a judge for a writing competition at a local secondary school for the last three years; been a guest author at a local book club; carried out book signing at local bookshops and presented a talk to Milton Keynes Rotary Club.

Completing the Novel and Short Story Writing Course with the Writers Bureau in 2018 gave me the confidence to write the first book and subsequently to complete the trilogy. I organise the Olney Writing Group for local authors, providing various workshops and speakers. I encourage and advise others, helping develop their confidence in continuing their writing journey. In 2024 I will be heading a team to organise the first literary festival in our town of Olney, The Olney WordFest, and running a writers’ retreat in the Cotswolds.