Welcome to Reluctant Readers. I am an award-winning children’s author, romantic suspense novelist, writing mentor to children’s authors and Editorial Manager for the online magazine for writers, Writers’ Narrative.
Before my writing career took off, I worked in Primary Literacy Support. I assessed pupils who needed extra-curricular support before creating and implementing their individual learning plans. As you can imagine, this was a job that varied from pupil to pupil. Sometimes, they just needed me to help get them up to speed, perhaps English wasn’t their first language or they had struggled with their initial sounds and needed to have these cemented to flourish through the following stages of their learning. More often, though, these children struggled with concentration, were dyslexic, had ADHD, Autism or other diagnosed/undiagnosed needs, or behavioural issues.
Often, I had to think outside the box, treat each child as the unique individual that they were, and find strategies and resources they could relate to. That were going to grab their attention and allow them to move through the varying stages without feeling overwhelmed or that they were unable to progress.
It was while working in school that I decided to see if I could publish my first children’s book. Initially written twenty years earlier, it had been lurking in the back of a cupboard, waiting for that ‘day’ when I might just muster up the courage to do something with it.
But my passion for encouraging children in their own reading and writing has never waned and this passion has taken me across the country with school author visits, creative writing events, book shop and festival events as well as writing numerous articles on writing for children and how to get reluctant readers reading.
Based in Perthshire, Scotland, with my husband and two Jackadoodles, if I’m not writing, mentoring, cooking or gardening, you’ll find me in the hills taking far too many photographs (photography being another passion).
