A Brief History

Like most writers, my writing journey began as a small child and has been long and convoluted. My love of scribbling began at a young age but by the time I was a teenager, I’d been diverted into academic pursuits and scrutiny of text. It was only when I became an English teacher (in my early twenties) that I remembered my love of writing and realised that my only aspiration as a teacher was to kindle this love in my students. Realising that school wasn’t the right place for me, I spent the next decade working with disadvantaged groups as a youth and community worker, always with a focus on inspiring client groups to find their voices and express their truth through words.

In the late 1990s I enrolled on a WEA Creative Writing course and quickly moved onto the MA in Writing at Sheffield Hallam University as a poet, where I received a distinction for my burgeoning novel. Like many writers, I decided to give up my day job to pursue fame and fortune but, even though the first agent I sent my novel to proclaimed that it “could be a bestseller making hundreds of thousands of pounds”, twenty years later, I was still chasing the elusive book deal and had long-since gone back to work!  

Since then, I have continued on my journey towards finding my own voice, whilst also working to inspire and support other writers along the way. In 2013, I won a Northern Writers Award for my young adult novel, Straight on till Morning (based on my experience of working with homeless young people and heroin users) and in 2015, I was commissioned by the Donor Conception Network to write the book that became Archie Nolan: Family Detective. Three weeks after the book launch, my mother died of cancer and twelve weeks after this, my new partner, Blacksmith Paul died suddenly and traumatically.

As a natural reaction, I turned to writing to support myself through the years that followed, posting my poems and reflections on grief on a blog which became Swimming through Clouds. Through writing the blog, I helped myself to come to terms with loss and found myself, inadvertently, helping other people who had experienced bereavements. The blog has been read by around 200,000 people and has lead to me writing on grief for The Huffington Post. The book of the blog, Dear Blacksmith was released by Valley Press in February 2020.

In the meantime, I have always worked with literature, both in Sheffield and beyond, often using my own experiences as the catalyst for new projects and initiatives to help other writers. In 2004, I founded the Sheffield Young Writers, a pioneering young writers’ project and later, worked with Signposts South Yorkshire to lay the foundations for further young writers’ provision. In addition, I worked for several years as a project manager for Signposts / Writing Yorkshire and as a consultant for The Reading Agency, Booktrust, The National Literacy Trust and Arts Council England, helping to shape policy for young writers and readers.

Later, I co-founded the Sheffield Novelists and established Bank Street Writers (now Blank Street Writers) to provide a home for emerging writers who had graduated from young writers’ projects. I was also instrumental in initiating the Sheffield Novel Slam, an event which arose out of my jealousy towards aspiring poets who seemed to have more limelight!

Since 2014, I have been facilitating my much-loved writing Get Writing workshops and running Children’s Writing Clubs on a freelance basis whilst supporting other writers as a coach and mentor. As a self-employed, single parent and writer, I am very familiar with the struggles of writers and creatives and the isolation that comes from working alone, from home, on projects which require nurture and support.

During the pandemic, I created my children’s writing handbook, Writing Revolution, out of my frustration with the lack of creativity in the school curriculum.

In 2021 I began establishing The Writers Workshop, a hub for writing, in Orchard Square, Sheffield. Now a thriving community and an company limited by guarantee, it’s a great place to find support for your writing. Join as a Gold member and you’ll receive special support from myself via my Monday Motivation group coaching sessions.

I’ve recently joined the Substack era where I’m exploring a new memoir called Aftershocks about the challenges of overcoming trauma and burnout. You can subscribe to that here.