For almost two decades, writing stories and accompanying developmental workshops has been a primary focus of mine. I have founded two active storytelling businesses, Drama Llamas and Animateys, both dedicated to inspiring children to learn and develop through experiencing stories actively.

A few years ago I took a step back from my entrepreneurial endeavours to focus on developing my skills as a picture book writer (and to get a sensible day job). Many people think writing a picture is easy, but to do it well takes years of graft, practice, critique, rejection and single-minded resilience. I’ve been on my picture book writing journey around four years now and have gained such a lot from the process. I’ve completed various courses over the years, and in in summer 2024 I was accepted onto the twelve-month ‘Writing for Young Children’ course with Golden Egg Academy. Five of my stories have now been recognised in competitions (Writing Magazine 2nd place, Searchlight x2 longlistings and WriteMentor x2 shortlistings). I’m also a member of two amazing critique groups which are my biggest support and source of advice and encouragement.

I write both in prose and in fast-paced rhyme and I try to write characters that inspire silly or interesting voices. I like adventurous and heartwarming stories but, overall, my preference tends to lean towards funny stories. And thinking back to my live storytelling days, this has always been the case— there was nothing better than having a whole group of little faces laugh (sometimes raucously) at the bits I had hoped they would!

Overall though, I’d say by big aim is to try to evoke the same emotional connection with my audience through my writing as I do during live storytelling performances. And this, of course, needs to be regardless of the reader.

I am currently looking for representation.