Hello!   I am a writer but I also sew and cook,  which works well: while the marmalade is cooking I can write, and while I chop oranges and grapefruits or sew I can think.  I have written for The Telegraph, the Daily Mail, Country Illustrated, the Scottish Field, Saga magazine, The Spectator and The Oldie.  I did an MA in Creative Writing at West Dean in 2011 and began to write fiction, both contemporary and historical. 

 

I have four grown-up children and I live in West Sussex with a Parson Jack Russell terrier called Beano. 

 

Some of my favourite writers are real oldies:  Wodehouse, Dickens and Trollope.  Then (amongst many others) Hilary Mantel, Barbara Pym, Mick Herron and Rose Tremain.   Recently I've loved Small Pleasures by Claire Chambers,  Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny and Circus of Wonders by Elizabeth Macneal.  Three Things about Elsie by Joanna Cannon is just wonderful; as is anything at all by Laurie Graham or  Belinda Bauer.