Biography, Writing, OTHER

Biography

My grandmother told me I read too much.  I remember walking in the garden when I was small, telling myself stories. It was over thirty years of wanting to be a novelist before I tried… and succeeded.

I started writing novels on holiday in 2012.  Our Child of the Stars began as a short story I wrote for Halloween in 2013. My writing group were impressed, and I became obsessed with Gene and Molly, and Cory, the little boy from the stars that they adopt, under such challenging circumstances. The book got lovely reviews and is available on both sides of the Atlantic.

Our Child of Two Worlds, delayed by the pandemic, raised the stakes and won similar praise. The two books conclude the story originally conceived although the universe of the books. – “the Coryverse” just might have more tales to tell.

The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Murder arose because I wanted to write about Britishness and specifically about Englishness; about our complex relationship with the past; I wanted leads who were morally grayer but still capable of kindness. I write about queerness a lot, and it was time for a novel with queer leads. And in quite desperate times of austerity, pandemic, and climate crisis, I needed to write something with some uplift. But really, Mrs Ashton and Braddie appeared, and over several years brewed in the back of my head. Maisie turned up very quickly when I started to write… The second book The Crooked Medium’s Guide to Terror is published 14th Sept 2026.

The books are a series centring these three characters, progressing in chronological order. While people may read out of order, my recommendation is to read in order if you can, not least to follow character development. There are also short stories from the whole of Mrs Ashton’s nefarious career, two so far and if I write enough she will have a Casebook.

I read widely and enjoy both speculative and non-speculative works. When it comes to writing, I usually include something different from our world, to help us see ourselves from a different angle. I hope my work is accessible and bridges audiences.

 I spent nearly all my childhood in Bristol, and I’m now an adoptive Londoner.   I live with my partner, and two adult children come back from time to time.   I’m a professional communicator, a science PhD dropout, a recovering poet, bi, and a Quaker. I’ve worked for various people including a failing health regulator and two well known hospitals, the second during the pandemic.

I write about my experience as an author not in the belief I have unique insight, but just to help other people and give a bit of the flavour of how it was for me.  Hence the backstage tag for posts. I also talk, mentor, critique and do other stuff to pay bills or because I want to.

I have a Wikipedia page. I never lobbied for it, although I was cross not to be in the Stephen Cox Disambiguation Page.

Obviously I had no control over this but it is broadly fair and accurate. I’d quibble that my parents were working at Harvard, not studying; that I was under two when I returned to the UK; and that I expect to have a fifth book out this year. Wiz-4 from Wizards Tower Press is two novellas Top Tips for Loving a Lizard (bows) and Marooned off Ceres by Ellen Mellor, which is excellent. The Crooked Medium books are a series, as described above.