After a career in libraries, I began writing in retirement and have had stories published by Scribble, Best of British, Tales of the Forest, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Poet, (2020 editions, On the Road and Christmas) To Hull and Back Short Story Anthology 2018, and Writers Forum (Feb 2121).

My writing has been placed in four competitions, shortlisted in five 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 collections Where the Wild Winds Blow and A Following Wind 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.

Our 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. Since then, there has been another writing group anthology followed by my short story collection Witch Way and other ambiguous stories.

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. I may revisit that next.

Look out for The Godmother, a retelling of Cinderella, which may appear first on this blog. I plan to publish The Pond People on Amazon and Smashwords after another edit (or four).