I initially trained as a photojournalist and would have become one had it not been for the actor Ken Campell. I saw him perform at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool and was blown away by his skill and stage presence. I decided I would become an actor instead. I gained an Hons. Degree in Drama and English Literature and began a career as a performer. But I also kept up with my photography. I had my own theatre company for many years and performed plays by Cocteau and Jean Genet, before deciding to write sketches and plays myself. I wrote a lot of children's shows - a direct result from working as a drama workshop leader - and these plays helped me to hone my skills in writing dialogue. However, when I moved to Suffolk nine years agao, I gave up my perfoming and decxided to concerntrate on prose writing. Surrounded by fields and beautiful scenery, I went back to my roots as a photographer and started to experioment with the visual image. This inspired me to write short stories based on these weird photographs. I am also influend by the people and countryside around me and found myself writing quirky tales about all sorts of characters. However, due to decades of writing only dialogue, my skills in prose writing was very poor. I took some creative writing courses at the UEA in Norwich UK, and eventualy gained a Diploma in Creative Writing. This gave me the confidence to start writing prose seriously. Now I work mainly in schools as a creative arts practitioner providing arts based workshops for young people. I also teach creative writing for both adults and young people. It was in a creative writing class that I teach in the local High School, that the inspiration for writing my debut novel, Echoes from the Lost Ones, came about. A couple of the young people that attended the class suggested that I write a novel about things that they felt were often left out of YA literature. I did as they suggested and in July 2013 the book, the first in a YA dystopian/sci-fi series called The Song of Forgetfulness, was published by Fable Press in July 2013. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;}  

B.A. Hons. Degree Drama and English Literature
Diploma in Creative Writing
Winner of the Suffolk Book League's Short Story Competition 2011
Shortlisted for the Escalator Genre Fiction Competition 2012
Published by Fable Press 2013 with the first book in the series - The Song of Forgetfulness.