Tag Archives: inspiration

Dear Paris

Posted on by vgemmell

Today’s prompt is to write about a city I love. So here’s my love letter to Paris.

Dear Paris, I found you at a time when I craved adventure and was feeling brave enough to hop on a plane alone to go and find you. Wandering your streets I fell in love with your beauty and you made me feel at home, like we were old friends and you were reminding me of the magic in the world, telling me to stop and look and enjoy being in the moment. The lights at night dazzled; stars exploding inside the Eiffel Tower, carousels spinning gold against a darkening sky. Shakespeare and Co. captured my heart, a treasure trove of words and wonder, notes from travellers pinned up on the wall of a typewriter nook, hellos and dreams from all corners of the world. A Parisian melody played imperfectly, but beautifully, upstairs in the attic room where the piano was always occupied by amateur musicians, their music a soundtrack to the shelves packed with stories waiting to be read.

Your metro signs are more beautiful than some of the art work hanging in your galleries. Your buildings are breath taking masterpieces. Jardin de Luxembourg is as grand as it sounds and the children racing boats in the pond and the old men playing chess under the trees were some of my favourite observations during the time I spent wandering and just sitting, watching.

Along the Seine you showed me artists who were attempting to capture a part of you…like me, with my camera taking hundreds of photos which will never do you justice, as my real memories are tied up in feelings and sounds and the tiniest of details that can never be put into words or printed onto paper.

November Creative Challenge

Posted on by vgemmell

Last month I mentioned taking part in the #writetoctober23 challenge over on Instagram which was a great way of making time to do short posts about my writing life and keeping my head focused on creative things. I didn’t take part some of the days when I was on my abroad honeymoon, but managed to keep up with the challenge for most of the month.

Since this ended I’ve missed having this fun creative focus, as often I’m so bogged down during the week with work brain I often find myself not having the headspace to work on longer novel projects. Then I get frustrated with myself because I’m not devoting any time during my week to anything creative at all.

Lots of people take part in NaNoWrimo (National Novel Writing Month) every November, where they commit to writing a certain amount of words per day, usually with the aim to accumulate 50,000 words of a novel by the end of the month.

I thought it would be fun to set myself the challenge of writing a blog post a day (hopefully!) throughout November instead, with no word count goal imposed; the goal is just to get some words down every day. (Obviously a bit late to the party as we’re 5 days in to November, but I will make up for lost time).

So I went searching online for themes and prompts to inspire me and came across this great post here on the See Jane Write by Javacia site which contains a whole year’s worth of blog prompts. I also flicked through my helpful little book of creative prompts, The Pocket Muse by Moncia Wood and found there was actually an overlap in some of the themes.

I made a selection of ones I found most interesting, and I’ve listed them below so that anyone reading this can maybe join in or find your own inspiration from this. Even although I have made myself this list below there is probably going to be some variation on it (for one, I probably won’t do them in order as I feel some will be quicker posts than others, so this may be my deciding factor for which one I land on for a particular day).

I am also going to give myself permission to use the ‘prompt’ loosely as I know it may spark off alternative ideas.

I’ve listed 30 prompts and obviously we don’t have 30 days left in November – so this allows for space to skip past any I feel stuck with. I might duplicate some posts (interviews, cities I love) so again if you are using the prompts, don’t feel confined by them.

I plan to put the prompt I’ve selected for the day on my Instagram account so you can follow me over there for reminders: @victoriagemmellauthor

PROMPTS:

  1. Why do you Blog?
  2. Write about an outfit you associate with an important memory
  3. Use an image as a prompt
  4. Write about a City you love (I might use this prompt more than once)
  5. Write a 6 word memoir
  6. Take a negative comment and flip it into an essay or post
  7. Write a love letter to your body
  8. Write a letter to your younger self
  9. What do you love most about writing
  10. Write about a time you had to speak to a large crowd
  11. Write a 6 word story
  12. What songs would be included in a soundtrack of your life?
  13. What is the opposite of cake?
  14. Interview people who inspire you (I plan to make this a recurring post, interviewing writers/creatives)
  15. Write about a milestone birthday (or birthdays)
  16. Write a commencement address for girls graduating high school/college
  17. Look out a window. What do you see?
  18. Write an essay/poem with the title ‘This is what I say, but this is what I mean’
  19. Write a 6 word poem
  20. Take a notebook to a gallery or museum and write about something you see there
  21. Write a post about an hour that changed your life
  22. Write a thank you note to your readers
  23. A high point or low point (or both) of your day/week/month/year
  24. Imagine the day living as someone else (I’m going to use prompts alongside this from an exercise I did in the Artists Way)
  25. Write about the best trip you’ve ever taken
  26. Share your goals and how you plan to achieve them
  27. Write about the 5 things you know for sure
  28. Write a post celebrating winter
  29. Explain what self-care means to you
  30. Write a poem, essay or story inspired by the Emily Dickinson quote, “I dwell in possibility”

You’ll see number 1 is Why do you blog? I started seriously blogging on the blogger platform back in 2010. I flew out to Vancouver to visit my friend Jane who was living there and during this trip I realised I wanted to properly document my experience (as I was spending some days exploring the city alone when my friend was at work). I also wanted a platform where I could experiment with creative posts. I remember when I was staring at an Alice in Wonderland themed shop-front (photo below) on Commercial Drive I came up with the name of my blog ‘Through the Looking Glass’ and I started writing posts as soon as I returned home.

I stayed on blogger until 2017, which overlapped with the creation of this website here on WordPress (which I created during the launch of my first YA book). I switched to soley using this blog platform since I found it hard to maintain two separate sites, and this one has my writing domain name so I use it on contact cards/promotional materials.

I feel on this blog I’ve not been quite as creative and experimental as I used to be on Blogger so I guess this opens the door to try something new and return to the core of what I wanted to achieve through my blogging; to keep my creativity flowing, sparking off a more creative life in general and keeping the fun in the day-to-day when developing work. And also maybe daring to be a bit more personal in my posts again, not being so super-conscious of my audience and expressing opinions or writing about things I feel passionate about.

I was also much better at connecting with other bloggers through the Blogger platform and used to enjoy reading about other writers’ journeys, so if anyone decides to do a similar creative challenge for November leave your blog link/social media handle in my comments and I will give you a follow!

What’s next?

Posted on by vgemmell

I’m sitting typing this on a dark, rainy afternoon thinking Autumn has truly arrived and on days like these it feels good to be indoors doing creative things. I’m still working on some final edits for my Young Adult thriller Young Blood. I don’t always talk much about books that aren’t out yet but I’m quite excited about this one and want to build up some momentum to the release (which will hopefully be in Spring). For Promise Me I did a launch online, two Octobers ago, when life still wasn’t quite ‘back to normal’, (whatever normal is these days!) and for Young Blood I’m hoping to have some fun organising a couple of in-person events.

I started working on this book a good few years ago, but it took me a while to settle on how to write it. The plot really started to take shape when I spent the weekend at the fantastic Chasing Time Writers’ retreat back in 2018, (which sadly is no more). I stayed in a big gothic style mansion dating back to the 1800s during the retreat, which was perfect as a similar house features in Young Blood and I found when I was there scenes started to jump into my head, helping me plot out the first eight chapters, which then gave me the momentum to really crack on with the book when I returned home. I finished my first draft in 2020 and then multiple rounds of edits took place. Last year I decided to give it some space, mulling over some further structural edits and now I’m nearly there with the final final draft. (Though I know there will still be lots of further proofreading and line edits!).

In the meantime here’s a short extract and blurb for the book:

“This place you’re taking me to, it sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch?”

She hesitated, lowering her voice, “It’s all true; the luxuries, the comfort…

All they want in return is one little thing.

Your blood.”

Held captive in a gothic house, kidnapped teenagers from the care system are exploited by a wealthy ring of powerful individuals for their ‘pure plasma’ blood transfusions. To cure illness and chase the dream of eternal youth, no price is too high.

When fifteen year old Hope goes missing, her friend Ana starts to unravel dark secrets that could lead to her rescue.

But then Ana has to make an impossible choice, receiving an offer that could mean curing her mum of early on-set dementia, at the cost of friendships and lives.

Would you betray your friends to save your Mum?

At the same time as focusing on this project, I have a new book idea taking shape in my head (and sometimes on paper!) I’ve got lots of short notes about characters and plot and scenes that randomly keep popping in to my head. I can’t wait to properly get stuck in to get some chapters down. It might even turn into a series, and even although it looks like the story will have another teen protagonist, it’s a teen with a difference (I’m not revealing anything about this one yet!) and the themes lend themselves more to an adult novel, so that will be an exciting new challenge.

On Instagram this month I noticed a fun creative challenge #writetober23 created by the author Annalise Avery (you can find out more about Annalise and her books here) We’re given prompts every day to provide insight into our creative process.

I’ve found it hard lately to nurture my creative brain so I’ve found posting daily about my writing process and taking time to put together some creative Instagram posts has been really helpful to keep me in the right frame of mind! If you’re on Instagram you should join in, there’s still plenty of days left in October to get going! You can find the prompts on Annalise’s acccount – @annaliseavery and you can find me on at @victoriagemmellauthor

On Friday afternoon I was invited along to chat to the Storytellers Society at the University of the West of Scotland. It was nice to see students creating a space to talk about books and writing in amongst their studying.

Next month I will be visiting Erskine Writers to deliver a workshop on writing flash fiction which is always a fun topic.

Finding Your Way

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Artwork by V Gemmell

Recently I’ve hit a bit of a creative slump so for my birthday a couple of months ago I asked for a copy of ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron. I’d always wondered about this book and my curiosity was piqued further when a recent article (in the May issue of The Writing Magazine) featured an interview with Julia Cameron, and she spoke about her recommended practice of writing ‘Morning Pages’, where you write down a stream of consciousness on three A4 pages every day before you do anything else. This is just one practice and task Cameron recommends in order to kick-start your creativity, or in my case, try to get ‘unstuck’. In the opening, Cameron describes the book as a ‘toolkit’ for artists, and, ‘as they (readers) learn to take small risks in their Morning Pages, they are led to larger risks. A step at a time, they emerge as artists.’ The book is divided into ‘weeks’ like you are undertaking a course, with new themes and tasks introduced each time, but what stays consistent is the suggestion to complete your Morning Pages daily, and once a week set time aside for ‘An Artist Date.’ This isn’t a suggestion that you hang around gallery openings asking for artist’s phone numbers. This date is with yourself, where you set proper time aside to engage in something creative, or at least an activity you enjoy, alone (the alone part is very important).

I’d like to say after delving into the book about 5 weeks ago that I have shown impeccable discipline, but I’ve not. I am averaging about three morning pages a week, and often this is typed into my notes pages on my phone as I travel by train into work. I get up at 6.45am the mornings I’m travelling into work and I’m not a morning person so I was loathe to set my alarm 20 minutes early (as it tends take about 20 minutes to pen three pages). For me, that was going to set me up to fail at the start, and would defeat the purpose of making this something I would hopefully enjoy, and something that would energise me.

So now my morning pages often turn into late afternoon or evening pages, and it’s probably missing the point of ‘clearing my head for the day’, but it has thrown up some very interesting musings and I often use my pages to reflect on why I’ve been feeling blocked. I have to say I am failing on the regular artist dates too but I have slowly started to set more time aside to enjoy and explore all sides of my creativity (not just writing) which is really important to me as it does really help me switch off from the distractions of daily ‘noise’. My pen drawing at the top of this post was a result of one such ‘date’, and I also finally read through a book I bought from the GOMA years ago, called ‘Art From Elsewhere’, which features 70 works by International Artists, selected by curator David Elliot. I particularly liked the photos ‘Girls in Cars’ by the artist Shirin Aliabadi – you can read a short article about her and her photography here.

Sometimes I feel I waste too much time scrolling through social media (don’t we all), but then I remember the fascinating accounts, such as Humans of New York, that I follow, and how there is so much inspiration to be found in ‘the every-day’. This is something I know; finding inspiration everywhere is a big message I thread through a lot of creative workshops I have delivered, but I seem to have forgotten of late. Noticing small things in life was mentioned in one of the chapters of Cameron’s book and I do think there have been so many ‘big’ unsettling things happening in the World of late, it’s easy to let that noise dominate. And it’s easy to tell ourselves we have so many important day to day responsibilities to carry out (which, let’s face it, exhaust us,) that we don’t have time to be creative and frivolous.

Recently I remembered someone from my past connecting with me on facebook years ago when my debut novel came out, who said to me, ‘Oh I see you wrote a book. I plan to do that one day but right now I’m far too busy.’ I felt like replying with the response I’m sure many writers would like to respond with, ‘Newsflash. We are all too busy, but if you really want to do it, you will make the time.’ Guess who I’m actually writing that message to now? Though as many writers know, having time is just one aspect of what holds us back. For me, being productive is very much about getting into the right mindset.

One of my favourite tasks so far in the book has been to write a letter from me at eighty to myself (with the prompts – what would I tell myself? what dreams would I encourage?). At first I struggled with this but then I quite liked eighty year-old me; she got quite sassy as the letter went on. It got quite personal, but I wanted to share part of it, because it’s probably something all of us need to hear sometimes:

Eighty-year-old me told me those times when I look at other writers/artists, whatever, and think I can never be that good, they’re so much better than me, they’re out there being so successful her response was, They’re not better than you. They’re braver than you. And if I look up when I’m eighty and all I see on my wall is some god damn modesty medal you won in your forties I am going to be very mad and hide it in a box of regrets. I want to look up from my armchair and see a wall covered in awards and certificates or at least some kind of photographic evidence that you have continued to put yourself out there, and celebrated your creativity and talents.

I hovered over that word ‘talents’ and nearly deleted it. But I didn’t. So I guess I’m half-way on my way.

Storytelling

Posted on by vgemmell

November has been a busy month. In amongst re-adjusting to life back in a busy office in my day-to-day life, I’ve enjoyed connecting with writers at a couple of events.

I’m in the middle of judging a teen short story competition for Erskine Writers group, where I delivered a workshop last month. Erskine Writers was where I first shared my work in public many years ago, and it’s lovely to return to lead workshops.

A couple of Saturdays ago I delivered an online workshop to the Teen Igniting Writing group (part of Wokingham Libraries), talking to a group of young people about what makes a good Mystery/Thriller. I was blown away by some of the extracts they read out of their own work, and had fun answering questions and talking about mystery books we love, (as well as telling them where my inspiration for writing mysteries comes from). I was very grateful to my school friend, Elizabeth, (or Lis as I know her), for organising this amazing session as part of her role as Young People Outreach manager. I don’t often get to engage with teens outwith Scotland, and I think one benefit of lockdown was the realisation online connections can be a positive way of reaching wider audiences/providing wider access.

One young person asked me, “What compels you to write?” It’s a good question, and one that has been circling in my head since. On the day I think I said it was ultimately my love of reading that sparked the desire for me to create my own stories, and I love seeing a story unfold and characters take over, which is all true.

But ultimately I think there is something deep within us all where we crave to connect with one another, and make sense of the world around us, and storytelling in all of its forms allows us to do that.

I was invited to a wonderful session last Saturday at Greenock Central Library as part of Book Week Scotland, celebrating creativity and writing within Inverclyde, organised and led by Writer In Residence, Katharine Macfarlane (who is an amazing Slam Poet. I am currently reading her poetry collection Home Words – it is full of beautiful imagery. You can buy a copy here).

Katharine is so enthusiastic about creativity and has got me involved in amazing events in the past, working with young people in Inverclyde. I grew up in Inverclyde, and previously worked there for ten years as a careers adviser, so it will always be a place I feel connected to. During this particular session I really enjoyed meeting other local writers and hearing them read their work, as well as finding out about future projects. Martin O’Connor, the Inverclyde Artist in Residence, also generated interesting discussion about how we all engage in some form of storytelling every day.

Some of the general discussion about Storytelling, and all of its forms, again made me think about how important it is for voices to be heard and that writing, (or spoken word), is a really powerful way we can encourage people to express themselves and tell their own stories.

In other news Promise Me is now available through wider distribution, both in digital and paperback formats, World Wide. It can be ordered into Waterstones here

Book news

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I

If the past year and a half has taught me, (and you, I’m sure), anything, it’s that life is unpredictable and short, and all the clichés that go along with that line of thinking.

If the past few years have taught me anything, it’s that the publishing industry is even more unpredictable and slow, and often constraining. Constraining in that you’re left to depend very much on someone else setting your timelines, and there’s a lot of waiting around wanting to know what’s happening, often ghosting, and that then gives you a lot of time to then wonder about your writing, and if it’s any good, and if you will ever see your next book in print. After taking my second book back from my publisher by mutual agreement it threw me out into the world of submissions again, you see. For the non-writers reading this basically think about any time you have tried online dating. It’s not all bad of course. In the end online dating was actually a success for me, and I have been traditionally published before, but… you know…you have to go through a bit of pain to get to the place you want to be.

For me, it felt like I’ve been standing still the past few years when it comes to my writing, even although ‘behind the scenes’ I have very much been getting words down on paper (or onto my screen). Too much of my thoughts were occupied with but when will these words be out there in the world again, will they ever be out there in the world again...everyone is going to think I’m a failure, and I forgot to enjoy the process and I fell out of love a bit with creating.

So then I started to ask myself what do I actually want from my writing? and I talked A LOT to people close to me who I feel very lucky to have in my life as they keep me sane , and I asked a good friend and colleague of mine (thanks Hilary) to give me a career coaching interview so I could dig a bit deeper into that question, (what do I want from my writing), and most importantly set myself some actions that would help me move forward.

I realised I am sometimes so immersed in the world of writers, on social media predominantly, especially the past few years, I subconsciously absorb what I think is the right or coveted direction to travel in terms of a writing career. And I put a lot of pressure on myself and I don’t actually focus enough on allowing myself to just actually ENJOY writing…to go back to that raw feeling of excitement that I get from joining words together that are actually forming into a story, and to enjoy seeing where it is going to take me.

After my first book launch friends bought me cards and bookmarks and there was a common phrase appearing on these: ‘ Create Your Own Story.’

So that’s what I am now doing; I am taking control of my own story, and this was a really long winded way of saying I have a book coming out next month and that I am going full Indie with this, self-publishing (but actually I have a team- my Mum has been amazing with the technical side, final edits, and I have a fab cover artist, Rebecca, and professional platforms which will deal with distribution).

It feels good. Promise Me, my next Young Adult mystery is finally going to make its way out into the world. And I hope some readers find it, as really that’s all I want. Readers, and a sense that I am connecting with people.

I will be doing a cover reveal very soon for Promise Me, posting my book trailer, and probably posting far too much about it in general, so I apologise in advance for that.

I’m finishing this post with a link to wise words from Ethan Hawke (a crush of mine back in his Reality Bites days, and who knew he has a lot of soul too…). This is titled: ‘Give yourself permission to be creative‘ The underlying message is basically stop worrying about the quality of your creative work and what other people will think of it, as the ‘world is an ‘extremely unreliable critic.’ And it is very important ‘to play the fool.’

I also recently read ‘Bird by Bird’ by Anne Lamott (every writer should read this) and I loved the line, ‘Be afraid of wasting…time obsessing about how you look and how people see you.’ And ‘Write towards vulnerability.’

Putting my work out there myself does make me feel vulnerable, but I’m ready to play the fool!

A little dinner, and a winner

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Last week I was at the Erskine Writers group annual dinner. As the group meet during the day it’s nice to catch up with everyone at the dinner. As a postal member of the group I get to stay in touch via email, and through updates on the blog, and also meet up with most of the group every year at the Scottish Association of Writers conference. I’ve been a member of the group since I was about seventeen. Erskine used to run evening sessions which allowed me to attend more regularly, and it was here I met some of my best friends. Over the years there have been so many interesting talks from a range of writers, and lots of inspiring workshops. Being part of a writing group gave me the confidence to start sharing my work with a wider audience, as well as teaching me more about structure and presentation for submissions.

At this year’s dinner I received a lovely Quaich Trophy as I won first place in the Flash Fiction competition last year. The photo below is of myself and Elizabeth (on the right), the president, who handed out the awards.erskine dinner

In other news, my Mum, Rosemary, and I were interviewed for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Blog. My Mum has been a member of the RNA for years and when they saw her sharing news of my book they were interested to find out more about our shared love of writing, and how we support one another. My Mum has always been a massive support and inspiration to me, (and she also introduced me to Erskine Writers), so it was really nice taking part in an interview like this. You can read that here 

And lastly I wanted to share a brilliant photo from my launch night of me with my cover artist, Ida Henrich. Ida shared this on her new facebook page today. You can check out more of her work here. It was great getting to meet Ida on the night, and she even came to the pub with me and my friends after the launch to help me celebrate. I also found out that the woods Ida photographed for the cover were in Pollock Park and one of my friends told us that there is actually a place called the Old Barn near here. Spooky!! I don’t think the ‘Old Barn’ is as cool as The Barn in Follow Me though 🙂

ida launch

Launch Night

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Cupcakes!

Cupcakes!

Follow Me ~ the books!!

Follow Me ~ the books!!

Famous for 15 minutes

Famous for 15 minutes

Me reading at Cafe W

Me reading at Cafe W

Last Friday evening was the launch night for my YA mystery, Follow Me, at Waterstones, Argyle Street in Glasgow, with my publisher Strident Publishing Ltd. What a night! I really couldn’t have asked for a better launch – I took along my mini coca-cola bottles, with Marilyn Monroe badges, encouraging everyone to be ‘famous for fifteen minutes’ by joining in posting about the launch on social media, with the hashtag #followmetothebarn (I had lots of fun looking through the tweets the next day). I also had my cupcakes with edible book cover toppers from the brilliant eatmyface.co.uk. My publisher, Keith, at Strident, was kind enough to supply wine and other soft drinks and my parents also brought along other savory nibbles.

My publisher, Keith, did a Q&A with me and I read out short extracts from my novel in-between. He knows Follow Me nearly as well as I do now, so his questions were very intuitive and it made it feel like a friendly conversation. I was overwhelmed by the amount of support from friends and family and it was brilliant looking out into the audience at such an encouraging and happy crowd! I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t feel nervous at all, which kept me calm when reading, and meant I enjoyed every minute of the night.

I had my first taster of signing books at the end, and it felt surreal, but amazing, to be sitting in Waterstones surrounded by my own books, with people wanting to buy a signed copy!

A strange co-incidence of the evening was when I met two women on the stairs, who were looking down at the set-out chairs, wondering what was going on. I invited them to come along, and later, after postings on social media, I realised one of them was part of a book group who had communicated with me via Instagram a couple of weeks ago. Neither of us had realised on the night! She was kind enough to write a little post about my launch here 

Afterwards I went for drinks to Drury Bar and Kitchen and they played a perfect selection of rock and alternative old-school tunes. It was lovely to be able to share such a special night with so many friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen for years. Even my old Primary Head Teacher turned up, which really made my night!! She was always so encouraging of my reading and writing in my last couple of years at primary school.

I’ve put up slideshow of photos on the right hand side bar of my homepage – see if you can spot yourself! Big thanks to Derek Mooney who took loads of photos on the night and to Lorna McLaren, Peter Morrison and my Mum, Rosemary, and other friends who posted photos on social media.

Thanks again to everyone who came along and made it such a brilliant night. It’s one I’m never going to forget.

You can order Follow Me now on Amazon here or order into your local Waterstones here

Ready for Take Off!

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montage

Tomorrow is the BIG LAUNCH for Follow Me at Waterstones, Argyle Street, Glasgow 6.30pm. I’m putting the final preparations together today for little things I want to take along. I’ve put together a montage photo (at the top) with some moments from my day yesterday. One big moment was getting to hold my book Follow Me for the first time in my hands – such a great feeling! And I also received a pop art card from one of my work colleagues – that’s me, Andy Warhol style, which is just brilliant. All of my work colleagues, friends and family, have been so supportive and excited for me and it makes the whole run up to launch day even more exciting for me!
The coke bottles are a little extra thing I am taking along to my launch, keeping in with the Andy Warhol, pop art theme.

One of my biggest champions since I could read and write was my Mum, the writer Rosemary Gemmell, and I was delighted to be interviewed on her blog yesterday. You can read that here  I couldn’t ask for a more inspiring and supportive Mum and it’s brilliant being able to share a love of words and writing with her. I was so happy when she got her brilliant book, The Highland Lass published earlier this year (one of many), as I know this was a story close to her heart, and I think this is probably my favourite book of hers.

There will be updates from launch night soon!!

Launch Night ~ Waterstones, Argyle Street, Glasgow

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book launch

So excited to reveal that my launch for Follow Me will be in the Argyle Street branch of Waterstones in Glasgow on Friday 9th October at 6.30pm. There will be drinks, some nibbles and of course book signings! I’ve been lucky enough to attend book launches in the past for writer friends and it feels amazing to know this time I will be the author at the event.

Read my book blurb here on the website of my publisher, Strident.

Come along to the event and hear more about the inspiration behind my book!