Biography

I was born in Birmingham, UK, in the same year that England won the football World Cup.

Apart from Saturday jobs in Waitrose and Tesco, my career has mostly been in English Language Teaching (ELT). Following a degree in History and English I trained as a teacher and taught for a year in a secondary school before embarking to Athens to do TEFL. After returning to the UK, I completed an MA in ELT and secured a lecturing post in EFL and Linguistics at the University of Wolverhampton. During my time there I co-authored three ELT exam textbooks with my partner, Peter Travis, including the Candidate series for Prentice Hall and Longman.

In 2000, after eight years of lecturing, I took voluntary redundancy and set up an online publishing company called Flo-Joe, which helps learners of English pass their Cambridge exams. Flo-Joe won the prestigious British Council ELTON award for innovation in 2003, and now has a sister website, called Splendid Speaking. In addition I work as a learning technology consultant.

I began writing creatively in 2004, quite by accident really. When I came to sign up for my regular Tai Chi class I discovered the tutor had moved abroad. At another table they were taking enrolments for a writers’ workshop. Hmm, creative writing? I thought. Isn’t that for pretentious, self-absorbed types? How wrong I was. For two hours every Monday morning I was tutored in the craft of short stories and poetry by Chris Morgan (Birmingham Poet Laureate 2008-9). I learned just as much from the fabulous group of writing students, many of whom have become good friends.

I had been well and truly bitten by the writing bug and in 2008 I was accepted onto the National Academy of Writing’s part-time Graduate Diploma, which runs at Birmingham City University. I love being a student and have completed four out of six modules, including Fiction and Life Writing. I was recently awarded the Academy’s ‘2009 Prize for Fiction’.

I live in Birmingham with Peter and our two children. For the last year I’ve been pursuing my obsession with Beatrice Cadbury, the radical daughter of the chocolate manufacturer. You’ll be hearing a lot more about her.