What an amazing place to be: leaned against a tree full of blossom, baked on a hot beach, anxious in a hospital waiting room, a book of blank pages on your knee, gel pen in hand and a head full of experiences; good, bad, funny, brilliant... and tragic. Your senses are attuned to the sights and sounds around you. Then you write, scribble, make notes and bury yourself completely in the act of creating.
I cut my teeth in nursing at the tender age of seventeen, then later, taught secondary school English for fourteen years and specialised in behaviour management and school exclusions. My husband, Mac, built a boat and we sailed and raced the Irish Sea and cruised Scottish waters; mostly cold and scared, but always with enthusiastic celebrations at landfall.
None of it taught me how to write, but there was plenty to write about: a frightening sea voyage that sparked off memories of the birth of my sister and won me an award, the drug-dealing and vulnerability of the teenagers I worked with and the stunning Welsh coastal landscape I now live in.
But it's all about the stories and the lives of other people; stories that people enjoy, make them care and go on caring, long after the book is finished.
All my experiences, and those imagined, have led me to the writing of 'The Boat Shed',' Rule of Twelfths', and the third, 'A Hot and Copper Sky', to be published next year.
