When we moved to Dorset in 1999 we immediately fell in love with our surroundings, finding ourselves in a small village with no street lights, a stream at the bottom of the garden and rolling hills and a deserted railway line at the end of the lane.

Here is a landscape that cannot fail to fill you with inspiration, and it is the setting for The Abbotsbury series of children’s books that I am writing, and many of my short stories and poems.

I love to explore along the Jurassic coast, but also to find hidden routes and places inland, many of which appear in my books.

My son is autistic and this has led me to experience the world from another perspective and to advocate for those children and young people with additional needs, including setting up the charity ASCape. Struck by the lack of beautiful books for children with additional needs that express their experiences and passions I started writing the Someone Like Me Series. The first three books cover autism, adoption and school refusal.

Publications

In 2019 I was a winner of the Dorset Writer’s prize and published in Dorset Shorts. I have had flash fiction pieces published in Dorset Voices by Roving Press 2012, Narrative Threads by Bridport Story Traders 2015 and This Little World. Stories from Dorset Writers, with Dorset Writers Network 2015. I  have also had articles published  in Adoption Today Magazine and am a contributor to Your Autism Magazine.

In 2019 I was shortlisted for the Yeovil Prize in the Writing Without Restrictions category and long listed in the National Literary Trust’s 2017 Short Story Prize.

In 2020 I started writing a book with parents of autistic children in ASCape in Bridport and we are just about to launch this book later in 2023.

Some of my recent poems are included in an anthology Green Words, published by Salt House Press June 2023.

Projects

I am very excited that Someone Like Me: My Story About Having Autism. By Dylan, has just been published by Honeybee Books in 2023.

Buy Dylan’s Story now on Amazon or The Great British Bookshop.

This is the first of a series of books about children with additional needs told from the inside, not in an adulted way. It is an honest and funny account from Dylan, who is 8. He tells us how he found out that he was autistic, and what this means for him. It is based on actual experiences, and situations of the author and her son and his friends.

Dylan’s story is for you, your friends and family, and any professionals who work with you, so that future diagnoses can be the start of exploration, discovery and connection.  Dylan finds a friend who is also autistic, and this helps him make sense of his experience. The book  shows that friends are no less important when you are autistic, and perhaps even more so.

Dylan’s story is suitable for children and teens from age 6+ depending on their stage of development and needs.

The second book in the series is about Lottie, a 10 year old who is adopted and  has FAS. She finds that she gets angry very easily. Lottie’s Story will be published early in 2024.

I am currently working on the second draft of Catalunya, a dystopian Young Adult book, which will be the first in a trilogy.

I am also enjoying researching for a third book in the Abbotsbury Series for 8 -11 year- olds which is set in the Civil War, and includes the dramatic sieges of Lyme Regis and Abbotsbury.