The Art of Stacking Plates

How I Got Here

When I was younger I wanted to be an author or a librarian-what is it about girls from working class backgrounds and libraries anyway? Later I wanted to study English at university but as I didn’t have a language ‘O’ level-yes I’m that old-I couldn’t. Much later I found myself teaching in Manchester in the UK and applied for the English Coordinator post but was offered the Maths post. It was more money and a more senior role so I took it. And I thought that was that.

I married had kids and was lucky enough, through my husbands job, to live in Hong Kong and Singapore. In 2006 we moved to America and I contented myself with reading, going to the theater, and writing Panto scripts for the local expat British Group

I have four children, my eldest a girl and three boys. After my daughter left home for college I found myself living with four males all football (soccer) mad. My weekend was wall to wall balls! So I started to write.

As Octavia E. Butler said, ‘You don’t start out writing good stuff.You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it’.

I hope I am getting better at it and I do have what Butler described as ‘one of the most valuable traits’ perseverance.

So please read my stuff and judge for yourself.

And as for my younger self-look you might not be an author yet but you have become someone who writes and who knows what might happen next?!