When I was a child, I wrote in almost every medium imaginable.
I wrote songs, poems, comics, magazines and, eventually, whole novels. I filled notebooks and teenage diaries with detailed plot outlines and character profiles. In an attempt to manifest the future I dreamt of, I penned imaginary blurbs for my stories. While most of those early creative projects have been lost to time and old tech, the joy and fulfilment they inspired have stayed with me.
By my early twenties, I was eager to reignite my creative passion. Years of work in retail, alongside studying English Literature, had sucked away some of the magic writing had once held for me, and I wanted it back. I went along to Write Like A Grrrl – a writing course for women and non-binary writers – and soon rekindled my spark, making life-long friends and connecting to a community I hadn’t known I’d needed.
In 2020, my husband and I moved from London to his native Sweden, into a red, wooden house in a village with a population of around fifty. In choosing this simpler life, I found more time to write than I’ve ever had before – a precious commodity I never take for granted. A new ambition took shape in my mind: to write a collection of short stories. The following year, I was selected from 120 submissions to write independent publisher Dear Damsels’ first single-author collection. In December 2021, my debut short story collection, Tools For Surviving A Storm, was released.
My short stories have been shortlisted in the Bridport Short Story Prize, and longlisted in the Cambridge Short Story Prize and Commonwealth Short Story Prize. I’ve been published widely online and, in 2022, one of the stories from Tools For Surviving A Storm was translated into Swedish by renowned author, Anna-Karin Palm. Making progress as a writer can sometimes feel so slow, but I hold each of these achievements close to my heart and let them guide me forward.
I am currently working on new writing projects, including a short story collection and the first draft of a novel.
My writing journey has been punctuated with special moments; let me share some of them with you.
2023
My story was shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize
I was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize
2022
My short story, Mushroom Picking For Strangers (from Tools For Surviving A Storm), was translated into Swedish by renowned author Anna-Karin Palm and published in award-winning literary journal, Balder
I had a short story longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize
2021
My debut short story collection, Tools For Surviving A Storm, was published by independent publishers, Dear Damsels
The Creek House (from Tools For Surviving A Storm) made the longlist for the Cambridge Short Story Prize