biography
I was born in 1978 in Bolton, Greater Manchester and previously wrote under the pseudonym of Boo Irwin, publishing Miserable Middles with my writing partner Phoebe Penhalligan.
Miserable Middles is a collection of short stories about an Underworld Kingdom where smiling is forbidden. I wrote the stories to read to my sister who was suffering from depression. I am informed that they helped.
I have been writing for as long as I can remember, at least from around the age of 15 when I penned an adult vampire novel entitled Night Killers. With youthful inexperience I submitted it to several top publishers, the highlight being a postcard from Headline turning me down but with a handwritten note describing my writing as "colourful and full of promise".
In 2010 I was a joint winner of the Manchester Children's Pitching Competition with my close friend Lorrie Porter.
During the day I work as a Practice Manager in a Solicitors Office in Manchester, and for two hours most mornings I can be found in Starbucks working on my netbook and ignoring the rest of the world. I live with my acrobatic hamster Heathcliffe, my neurotic dogs Rex and Darcy and my equally neurotic sister, Samantha.
I am also the North West Regional co-ordinator for the SCBWI and have arranged several writing workshops and talks the highlight being the 2012 Professional Series.
I am represented by Kirsty McLachlan of DGA Literary Agency.
Miserable Middles is a collection of short stories about an Underworld Kingdom where smiling is forbidden. I wrote the stories to read to my sister who was suffering from depression. I am informed that they helped.
I have been writing for as long as I can remember, at least from around the age of 15 when I penned an adult vampire novel entitled Night Killers. With youthful inexperience I submitted it to several top publishers, the highlight being a postcard from Headline turning me down but with a handwritten note describing my writing as "colourful and full of promise".
In 2010 I was a joint winner of the Manchester Children's Pitching Competition with my close friend Lorrie Porter.
During the day I work as a Practice Manager in a Solicitors Office in Manchester, and for two hours most mornings I can be found in Starbucks working on my netbook and ignoring the rest of the world. I live with my acrobatic hamster Heathcliffe, my neurotic dogs Rex and Darcy and my equally neurotic sister, Samantha.
I am also the North West Regional co-ordinator for the SCBWI and have arranged several writing workshops and talks the highlight being the 2012 Professional Series.
I am represented by Kirsty McLachlan of DGA Literary Agency.
