Gilli Allan started to write in childhood - a hobby pursued throughout her teenage. Writing was only abandoned when she left home and real life supplanted the fiction. Gilli did not go to Oxford or Cambridge but, after just enough exam passes to squeak in, she attended Croydon College of Art. She did not work on any of the broadsheets or in television, but has done a variety of less prestigious jobs. She was a shop assistant in several West End department stores, selling wigs, shoes, children’s fashions and accessories. She has also been a beauty consultant, a bar-maid and did a job with no title which involved spotting American tourists in London and persuading them to go on a coach tour that culminated in a lunch at the Hilton. There they had to endure a high pressure pitch selling real-estate in Florida! Gilli worked longest and most happily in her dream job as an illustrator in advertising. She only started writing again when at home with her young son. Though she wanted to write about relationships and love, from the start Gilli always favoured honesty above the chocolate box symmetry of much romantic fiction. Her books are contemporary but they are unconventional and unpredictable.  They do not have join-the-dots plots. Her first two finished novels, Just Before Dawn and Desires & Dreams, were immediately accepted by a new mainstream publisher. Sadly it didn't it eventually ceased to trade - unable to get the marketing and distribution necessary to achieve success for itself or its writers.  After a period in the wilderness, Gilli went independent and published TORN and LIFE CLASS as e-books. TORN went into paperback in September 2012. Gilli has been a school governor, a contributor to local newspapers, and a driving force behind the establishment of a community shop in her village. Still a keen artist, Gilli regularly attends a life-class near her home in Gloucestershire, where she now lives with her husband, Geoff, and son, Tom.  

Achievements: The first book I ever finished found a publisher within 4 months of completion.

I didn't go to university. The only academic prize I have ever won was for a school project on the subject of archaeology when I was eleven.