About Anna

I’ve spent most of my life working with books and literature; running creative writing, literature and memoir workshops and delivering courses through the W.E.A.  Alongside teaching I worked in our local independent bookshop and ran the box office for the Ways with Words Festival.  For information on workshops go to the Workshops page.

I’ve always written and eventually gave up regular teaching to have more time to write Amie’s Rest and the prequel; Amie’s Book of Walks, which I’m now re-working with a view to publishing under the Buzzard Press imprint early next year.  My short stories have appeared in Riptide and I’ve had theatre, book and craft reviews in both local and national press.

Authors who excite me are Tom Bullough for his ability to reveal a place and its people in haunting detail; Jim Crace for his skill in handling big themes with a small cast of characters, Marilynne Robinson who, like Virginia Woolf, teases out the interface between individual perception and the outer world and Elizabeth Strout for her compassionate stories of family relationships.  I’ve just discovered Claire Keegan who isn’t afraid to write about difficult subjects in challenging voices, creating places that impact on her character’s personalities.

I  live with my husband, Malcolm, in a small South Hams village between Dartmoor and the sea, our family just a short distance away.  When I’m not writing I’m helping Malcolm with the garden – Our front garden a mini wild flower meadow – our back garden mostly vegetables.  We’re members of Sustainable Staverton and are gradually increasing the biodiversity around the village with working parties and a stall in the village market.  Like Amie I love to walk, both by myself and with the local Ramblers.

I feel very privileged to live and work in such a beautiful part of the country with a vibrant community, but I’m aware that we live in uncertain times in a global society where the odds are stacked against so many people and the divide between rich and poor , safe and unsafe increases every year.  My writing is never overtly political, but like all novelists I’m influenced by everything I’ve ever read, heard and experienced.