Recently I was interviewed by the lovely Vince Stevenson on his Boomers on Books youtube channel.
If you'd like to see me in the flesh - click here and have a watch.
ABOUT DJ
In time-honoured tradition, here are a few snippets about my life, my writing life and me. A potted history, if you like.
I was born in County Durham (UK) but oddly, I feel that I have never been there, as my family moved ‘down south’ when I was about six. I have vague memories about teasing because of my Geordie accent when I started primary school – the accent is long gone – I sound like a proper southerner now.
School was average and no, I cannot boast any early pretensions about wanting to be a writer. I have mild dyslexia. At school, the muddled words and inability to remember anything by rote marked me out as lazy, or stupid, and usually both.
I was good at art and did begin A levels but the stress of still trying to tackle core subjects meant I dropped out fairly quickly and went into hairdressing.
Hairdressing and I got along fine. I travelled the world working on cruise liners, came home and opened my own salon.
Somewhere in the above, I got married too young and divorced. I could go into detail, but how long do you want this post to be?
Anyway, I married again. This time I got it right. When pregnant with our first child, I sold the salon. I was not sure what I wanted to do next. In the throes of new motherhood, I decided I wanted to teach.
The big thing that had happened was computers. My husband bought one and persuaded me to ‘have a go.’ As soon as I poked that mouse and played that keyboard, I just knew that here was my salvation. Everything I battled with - illegible handwriting, misspelt words, lack of connectives – were now easily corrected with the machine’s help. I taught myself to type properly with an online course and took a degree with the Open University followed by a PGCE – I became a primary teacher.
Time has flown. Our two children have left the nest and it is many years since I had ‘my own class.’ Supply Teaching proved to be the answer for me. Working for a large agency allowed me to choose my working hours which gave me almost enough writing time. Then, finally, I decided it was time to give my writing a chance and gave up teaching altogether.
I began writing a ghastly ‘novel’ when I was working on those cruise liners. I cannot remember much about it, which is probably just as well. Something vaguely romantic scrawled into a notebook at first and then on one of those ‘brother’ typewriters that had a tiny screen showing the sentence in progress. The title was ‘Good People’. No idea why.
I am pleased to announce that my work-in-progress for the last few years is finished. Crystal Bound is a dark fantasy series set in a medieval-type world. It has been great fun to write but now I am very excited to start a new story in a different, futuristic world. This time I’m not going to let it take ten years to complete.
I also write magazine articles in a variety of subjects encompassing writing fantasy, independent publishing, women’s issues, teaching and psychology.
Do get in touch if you have a question on the contacts page. We could also connect on my BLOG.
Find me on social media, the links are above and of course, I'd be delighted if you joined my email list and got your free novella the Dead Gift, here.
All the best,
DJ