I've been writing fiction for five years and I've just finished my first novel which began as a story told around a campfire, imagining walking into the woods and out into a different time. What might happen? Who would you meet? What would you do? At first, it was an an exciting story to tell the family but as the novel evolved, it became a darker story about survival, about coming to terms with losing home, family and everything that matters, and how unexpected and unlikely friendships make life still worth living.
The novel is the first of a trilogy and the next two volumes will follow the main character as she makes her life in the past and how she might not want to be found by the people left 'behind' in the future.
To get the novel written, I studied on the two year Creative Writing Course with New Writing South in Brighton, UK and am now doing the Big Edit with the Novelry. My novel has been longlisted and shortlisted for various First Novel Awards: Flash 500, Exeter First Novel Prize, Cinnamon Literature Prize, Eludia Novel Prize and the Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award. In 2021 won the Eyelands Unpublished Novel Award.
I live in Brighton, UK with my partner and two almost grown up children. I work in a strange government unit in London, not entirely dissimilar to the time travel unit in the novel and my family look after a wood in Sussex where the idea for the story first germinated. I'm planning to work less and write more, as soon as possible.
Comments
Excellent restrained writing…
Excellent restrained writing that hooks us in without giving the game away.