I was shocked when the Manchester Evening Newspaper turned up to interview me at work! I work as a surveyor and was on site at the time. I had to pose with my book for my picture with men on the scaffolding above me shouting and laughing. very embarrassing!

Literary fame for council surveyor
Robert Bottomley
9/ 1/2004
POEM LAUNCH: Victoria Finn
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Literary fame for council surveyor

WHEN she was just 11 Victoria Finn was already a published author after a poem she had written was printed in the Manchester Evening News.

And that first taste of literary fame in 1979, as schoolgirl Tracy Costello with her verses on Me and My Doggy, gave her the writing bug - and she's never stopped.

Now she is celebrating her first novel hitting the bookshelves after impressing an international publisher.

By day, Victoria, 36, dons a hard hat as a surveyor with Manchester city council. But at night she combines looking after her son Edward, six, with her second career as an author.

While her novel One Man's Meat is Another Man's Poison has just gone on sale at bookstores including Waterstones and WH Smith and internet supplier Amazon, she is hard at work on two more novels and poems.

She says she writes at least three nights a week to help her unwind from her day's work spent inspecting council buildings.

Victoria, from Reddish, Stockport, said: "My mum sent that first poem to the MEN without telling me. It was a real shock when it was published.It was the first thing I'd ever had published and that gave me a real boost and spurred me on to write more.

"The novel took about six months to write while I was studying for my construction management degree at Salford University. I wrote it as a form of relaxation at night."

Victoria's novel is a dark tale about a woman, abused by her husband, who seeks revenge for her ordeal.

But she says that her next two books will have a lighter theme.

One is a ghost story and the other is a comedy.