About MeMy career has been varied: psychiatric nurse, school counsellor, dance development officer, arts practitioner and part time lecturer – work that has involved communicating with and attempting to understand people.
I take the same approach with my writing, trying to understand my characters, their motivations, loves, insecurities. Even when writing about my own life, I try to discover something new and unexpected. Curiosity or a need to make sense of the world is a driving force. I like to surprise myself with where my writing takes me. Ideas come from many different sources: photographs, art, memory, inspirational people and their lives, nature. My writing can also be driven by emotion. Poetry is my passion and my poems have been widely published. I am increasingly drawn to flash and micro fiction. I find it a very hard thing to do, to create a story in so few words. I have an MA in Fine and Media Arts from the University of Gloucestershire (1998). My focus was on writing for performance, which included text based writing and writing through the body (movement and dance). My PhD in Women's Voices in Contemporary Poetry was completed in 2007 with Manchester Metropolitan University. This explored the idea that certain types of poetry might be drawn from a pre-verbal quality, drawing on fragments, sound, rhythm etc. It was during this period of study that I began to wonder what my own poetic voice might sound like. |
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AwardsRegistered Mental Nurse.
BSc: Psychology/Performance Arts MA: Fine and Media Arts PhD: Women's Voices in Contemporary Poetry |
PublicationsPoetry Pamphlet - Holding On
Poetry Pamphlet - Stroud Poets - Series 2 - No. 10 Poetry Pamphlet - Touching Sharks in Monaco Various poems and prose in zines and print journals |