Not consciously. I’m not one of those writers who wrote short stories or poetry from a young age. From childhood I’ve been a person who lives a lot in their own imagination and enjoys their own company. I’m one of five children and our council house (now social housing) was always noisy and busy. We didn’t have a lot of money, but Mum was a great household manager and we never went hungry although there were few luxuries.
My life changed when I discovered the local public library. I totally fell in love with books. Everyone teased me for always reading. Books seemed like magic and authors were mysterious people. I’ve mentioned The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe in other interviews. Something about that book resonated with the dormant writer within me.
Tell us how your writing journey began?
I was lucky enough to go straight from school into working for Northamptonshire Libraries – the perfect job for a committed bookworm. I first put pen to page when my two sons started school. My historical novel was inspired by the remains of an Iron Age hillfort close to where I live. It was never good enough to be published, but I learned a lot from writing it and gained a literary agent. That’s another story! It came to my attention that a publisher was asking writers to submit chapters and outlines of novels ‘loosely’ along the lines of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. I’d never for a second imagined writing a ‘racy’ novel. I responded, and to my great surprise was accepted. I went on to write eleven novels and an Anthology of short stories for two different publishers. I became a published author, and gained my first two pen names. (Those early books are now out of print.)
