About me
I have worked in PR all my career and completed an MA in Creative Writing at Northumbria University.
My life took quite a turn when while shopping in York on my daughter’s 13th birthday, I had a burst brain aneurysm and was only able to return home three weeks later after life-saving surgery.
Most people who have a burst aneurysm die in the ambulance, the remainder have a significant disability and only 10 percent live their lives as they used to. I had been, and still count myself, incredibly lucky.
Being so ill made me realise how important it is to get on with fulfilling your dreams, so I pursued mine. The first one was to do stand-up comedy – perhaps not what most people expect from a middle-aged mother of teenagers!
After doing a course at the Edinburgh Fringe to learn the basics, I performed unpaid, five-minute stand-up gigs in the North East for two years and learnt the true meaning of fear! The material and experiences from then have inspired my novel The Stand-Up Mam, which is about a fictional perfect wife and mother who becomes a dark comedy queen at the expense of her family.
It isn’t autobiographical, but my story also explores motherhood and what happens when a woman puts themselves first. Spoiler alert. It’s not plain sailing!
