About Me

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Shortlisted Bath Short Story Award 2013 Runner-up Cinnamon Press Competition 2013 WNNER: Don Louth Writer of the Year (run by Reading Writers) WINNER: Bradt/Independent on Sunday Travel Writing Competition 2012. SHORTLISTED: Scott Prize (Salt Publishing) 2012 for a short story collection. Writer/ Journalist - assistant editor and writer for the art and books pages of Wolfprint. Most recently published in Independent on Sunday and short story anthologies: Sentinel Champions No 9, 100 Stories for Queensland, 50 Stories for Pakistan, 100 Stories for Haiti and From Hell to Eternity. In a recent writing competition, Joanne Harris described my writing as '...compelling (but quite creepy)'

Thursday 1 April 2010

You Would be a Fool Not to Read This....

Today is Fool’s Day. I feel a little bit of a fool at the moment – in the sense that I am stuck in a daft non-achieving fug. Being bogged down by things, by life, is a hazard that everyone faces. I am no different. My daughter’s very serious problems at school – with her motivation, with her concentration - are so very real, so very solid, that they have temporarily eclipsed the wobbly phantom worlds that I usually enjoy creating. I have stopped entering competitions, stopped caring about writing. It feels so very different to how I felt at the beginning of the year, when everything was about possibility. I have even stopped reading, which feels scandalously wrong. My mind is like a fly that doesn’t want to settle – fluttering everywhere. Nervous. Purposeless. (I won’t say attracted to poo but it certainly seems to be seeking out rubbish to distract me,)

I think my brain needs cleaning. It should be taken out gently and a toothbrush run over that knobbly grey stuff. Like polishing heavily chased silver, getting into all the grooves.

There are lots of things that will save the day though – in the end:

1. Beautiful, wonderful, witty, wise and warm friends.
2. My sense of humour – an appreciation of the absurd.
3. Writing. It will get me back in the end.

So goodbye to Fool’s Day. Here’s remembering my favourite character the Fool giving the audience my favourite quote in my favourite Shakespeare play, King Lear:

‘Jesters do oft prove prophets.’

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Prizes and Writing Awards

  • Winner Bradt/Independent on Sunday Travel Writing Competition 2012
  • Shortlisted for Salt Publishing's Scott Prize for short story collections 2012
  • Finalist in Brit Writers' Award 2011
  • 2nd in Sentinel Literary Competition 2011
  • Whitechapel Society Anthology to be published 2010
  • Shortlisted for the Mslexia Short Story Competition 2009
  • Shortlisted for The Asham Award 2009
  • Joint winner of the Penguin/Decibel Prize 2008 - Asian Invisible. Published as The Map of Me
  • Highly Commended in The National Galleries of Scotland Short Story Competition 2008
  • Runner-up in Segora Short Story Prize 2008
  • Joint Winner of The Lancet Short Story Competition 2007: The Resurrection Girl.
  • Runner-up in Virgin Trains/The Guardian Short Story Competition 2007: A Small Revolution
  • Winner of the Woman and Home Short Story Competition 2006: Ghosts of Jamaica.
  • Shortlisted for The Asham Award 2005
  • Runner-up in the Good Housekeeping Short Story Competition 2003
  • Winner of The Sunday Telegraph Tourism for Tomorrow Travel Writing Competition 2002: Wolves of Rumania. Winner
  • Winner and also Winner of Most Original Short Story in the Competition in Trowell and District Writers' Competition 2006