I GREW UP IN A WORLD SURROUNDED WITH WORDS AND STORIES...

My parents met in the theatre and they both had a passion for the world of make-believe and fiction, something which they instilled in me.

One of my earliest memories is my mum reading ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ to me.  One of the first books I ever read by myself was ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’, which I devoured to the point where I could recite whole sections from memory, much to the amusement (and, occasionally, derision!) of my schoolmates.

My love of fantasy and SF grew. I studied Drama and Community Development at university and wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have a master's degree in Applied Linguistics, specializing in Sociolinguistics, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing. I love comics too, and when I've not got my nose in a book, I play RPGs and computer games. I also adore the cinema and theatre, and will go whenever I can!

I also like studying and learning. I work at a university in Scotland and enjoy research in criticality, creativity, and reflection. I proudly call myself a feminist and have consciously tried to make my own writing not only representational of women but also to show 'non-traditional' masculine characters and roles as well.

I think it is important that literature reflects not just the world as it is, but as it could be. This element is particularly intrinsic to speculative fiction, and it is one of the reasons I've always been so drawn to the genre. 

My favourite authors are quite varied, though I would have to say that Terry Pratchett is my number one. Others include Max Brooks, Grant Naylor, Stephen Baxter, Suzanne Collins, Anne Rice, Steig Larsson, Elizabeth Gaskell, Joseph Heller, George Orwell, Jerome K. Jerome, P. G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen, Xiran Jay Zhao, MXTZ, Holly Black, N. K. Jemisin, James S. A. Corey, Kurt Vonnegut, and Thomas Hardy.