After a career in libraries, I began writing in retirement and have had stories published in Scribble, Best of British, Tales of the Forest, Writers Forum, SevenDays, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Poet anthologies,and To Hull and Back Short Story Anthology 2018. My published stories are available from Amazon and Smashwords.

My writing has been placed in four competitions, shortlisted in six and longlisted by the National Literacy Trust. (Always the bridesmaid…)

Published books are listed at My Writing, and I contributed stories and poems to the four anthologies from our writing group, the Whittlesey Wordsmiths.

Most of the time, I live with my husband and dogs in Cambridgeshire’s Fens, surrounded by flat but ever-changing fields. At other times we live across a garden fence from London’s historic Epping Forest.

F.A.Q.

Q: Why did you decide to self-publish?

A: In my twenties, I toyed with the idea of writing a novel, but life got in the way. Now retired, I don’t have decades ahead of me for querying agents and publishers.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Spiers/e/B08BK7LM7ROur writing group self-published a collection, which I found myself proofreading and formatting for publication. Its local success encouraged me to format and publish my own story-poem A Year Before Christmas, for practice with adding pictures. Since then, there have been another three writing group anthologies followed by my short story collection Witch Way and other ambiguous stories. Later publications were The Godmother, based on my longlisted Cinderella rewrite, and PondPeople, about little people who live in a garden pond, for which blogger, artist and writer John Spiers designed the beautiful cover.

Q: In some stories I can’t tell if characters are male or female. Are we meant to guess?

A: What would you like them to be?

Q: Do you have any novels planned?

A: I completed the first draft of a ‘practice novel’ before realising I had a lot to learn and abandoning it for short stories. Each time I have leisure to revisit it, I find an online recipe I’d like to try first. My subconscious may be trying to tell me something.