Writing
My Publications
Brave - Winner of The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition 2013. Published in paperback and e-book April 2014 by The Chicken House. Stone Age novel for 8-12 year-olds, follows Wild Horse and Blue Bird on a dangerous adventure. Thirteen winters old they must fight spear, tooth and claw to survive against ferocious wolves, thunderous mammoths, a raging giant sloth. With Blue Bird’s dog Paska and Storm, an orphaned sabretooth cub, as companions …
Pour l’Honneur de la Tribu – French edition of Brave
The Jar of Sybil, short story in Creel 3: Anthology of creative writing – Wivenhoe Bookshop, 2017
The Unheard, essay with two poems in Creel 4: Anthology of creative writing – Wivenhoe Bookshop, 2018
Tanka poems – collaboration with Tim Gardiner – The Bamboo Hut Journal of English language tanshi - online TheBambooHut.weebly.com issue No.2, 2020
Haiku – in Where Shallows Talk: Poetry and prose inspired by the paintings of Sir Alfred Munnings – The Munnings Art Museum, 2020
A Good Place to be Alone – haibun in Fenland Poetry Journal, Autumn 2022
Favourite Books Read
It’s difficult to choose favourites. Preferences change. I’ve listed those I’ve read more than once or would consider reading again, but I might have missed one, or included one that could be replaced by another. There’s not enough reading time to read all the good books that exist. In no particular order:-
Children’s books read as a child:
Aesop’s Fables
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
White Fang and Call of the Wild, Jack London
MG/YA books read as an adult:
I, Coriander, Sally Gardner
Sky Song, Abi Elphinstone
Skellig, David Almond
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, Annabel Pitcher
The Chaos Walking Trilogy, Patrick Ness
The Graveyard Book and Coraline, Neil Gaiman
The Boy Who Could See Demons, Carolyn Jess-Cooke
Kensuke’s Kingdom, Michael Morpurgo
A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K Le Guin
Goth Girl, Chris Riddell
Adult fiction
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
The Overstory, Richard Powers
Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Max Porter
Harvest, Jim Crace
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman
Eve Green, Susan Fletcher
The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Winter Ghosts and The Citadel, Kate Mosse
Chocolat, Joanne Harris
Me Before You, Jojo Moyes
Adult non-fiction
Findings, Kathleen Jamie
Turtle Island, Gary Snyder
Birds Art Life Death: A Field Guide to the Small and Significant, Kyo Maclear
Ness, Robert Macfarlane
Nature Cure, Richard Mabey
Women on Nature: 100+ Voices on Place, Landscape & the Natural World, Ed. Katherine Norbury
Letters to the Earth: Writing to a Planet in Crisis, Intro Emma Thompson
Kinship: Belonging in a World of Relations, 5 volumes – Planet, Place, Partners, Persons, Practice, Eds Gavin Van Horn, Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Hausdoerffer
Poetry
Words the Turtle Taught Me, Susan Richardson
Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, Wendy Cope
Of Sea, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett
Forage, Rita Wong
The Paper House, Karen Dennison
A Fire in My Head, Ben Okri
Blue Horses, Mary Oliver
The Overhaul, Kathleen Jamie
Turtle Island by Gary Snyder
Death of a Naturalist, Seamus Heaney


Award
Winning
Book




"Her beautifully written novel, BRAVE, rose to the top in the recent judges' meeting. Wild animals and wild children make this a spirited and fiercely fun debut - a worthy winner!"
Barry Cunningham
Head Judge and
Head of Chicken House
March 2013
