South Warwickshire Literary Festival
21st September 2024
Victoria House, Leamington Spa CV32 4PT
Our Authors
This year's fabulous line-up of authors A-Z
Alison is a published commercial fiction author and writes short stories, novels and novellas. She has won the RNA’s Elizabeth Goudge Trophy and been shortlisted in the RoNAs and the Love Stories Awards. A member of the Society of Authors Alison is also a qualified teacher in adult education, an experienced creative writing tutor, and a former Chairperson of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. She has studied History and Creative Writing, worked as a waitress, a shop assistant, a learning adviser, an advice centre manager, and a freelance trainer, before settling on ‘making up stories’ as an entirely acceptable grown-up career plan. Read more about Alison here.
After a career in academic research, Anthony turned to writing fiction. His novel Small Wars in Madrid is his latest, published by Fairlight Books, as is Inside the Bone Box. Two other short novels, Winegarden and Life in Translation, are published by Holland Park Press. Anthony lives in Leamington Spa.
Anne was brought up in care. She was a shop assistant before she joined the Warwickshire Police. From there she became a social worker and care manager for local authorities in the Midlands. Now retired, she lives with her husband in Coventry. Call me Auntie is Anne’s first book. It tells her story of being left behind by her mother as a baby and her childhood in a loving foster home followed by a ‘Heartbreak House’ care home. She wrote her story by blending her own recollections with her social services records, to which she gained access forty years on. Her reason for writing was simply to understand her own story and how it led her into adulthood. Anne will talk about her triumphs and disasters as she lost and found her mother more than once, searched for her roots, and discovered that she might be ‘a princess after all.’
Becky is the creator of and voice behind the popular Twitter account @deathtospinach. Having been on the receiving end of an annoying number of direct messages from online romance scammers, Becky started to enjoy wasting their time and then publicly ‘outing’ their accounts. No other woman has had so many online romances – from Keanu Reeves to Brad Pitt to Prince William and she is a firm favourite with brave US peacekeeping soldiers and oil rig workers who desperately need iTunes vouchers or Amazon gift cards. Becky's book, Keanu Reeves Is Not In Love With You, looks at all aspects of romance fraud, from the heartbreaking to the hilarious, the academic to the anecdotal and discusses where we're going wrong when dealing with those affected.
Fran is a Leamington-based retired English teacher who now writes full-time. Her funny teacher-memoir Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean? was published in 2020. Her debut novel Cuckoo in the Nest (Legend Press, 2023) features a sparky, sarky, wannabe-poet teenager in foster care. Another 'Cuckoo' book is forthcoming
James is a children’s literary agent and author from family-run literary agency The Catchpole Agency based in Oxford. The agency specialises in children’s literature from board books for babies up to novels for teenagers and James comes to agenting from an editorial perspective, from a love of words and their rhythm, and of the structure and power of narrative.
Photo: Paul Crowther
Kit is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother, who was a childminder and foster carer and a Caribbean father. She worked for fifteen years in criminal and family law, was a magistrate for several years and sits on adoption panels. She used to advise Social Services on the care of foster children, and has written training manuals on adoption, foster care and judgecraft for members of the judiciary. My Name is Leon, her first novel, was published in 2016 and shortlisted for the Costa Book Award. Her 2022 memoir, Without Warning And Only Sometimes, was seralised on BBC Radio 4. Her new novel Best of Everything will be released in April 2025
Warwickshire Young Poet Laureate 23/24
May developed a love for writing early on, winning Heartbreak Productions' competition Tell a Story. May loves participating in open mics and has won the Muriel Kilding cup at the Leamington Competitive Festival, alongside winning the Canterbury Tales Chaucer Young Poets Competition 2023, and the Solstice Young Nature Writer's prize.
Her blog is here
Twitter/X account @mayvwrites
Simon is a freelance writer, bestselling author, and photographer. His travel features have appeared in magazines in the UK, USA, Australia, and Canada, including Coast, Britain, The Countryman, This England, Explore England, BBC Countryfile, and The People’s Friend. He also writes the Business of Writing and the Ask The Agent columns in Writing Magazine. For more information, visit www.simonwhaley.co.uk
Sophie Hannah is a No. 1 bestselling crime writer whose books are published in 51 countries and have sold millions of copies worldwide. She won the UK National Book Awards Crime Novel of the Year prize in 2013, and the Dagger in the Library Award in 2023. She is the author of the new series of Hercule Poirot continuation novels, commissioned by Agatha Christie's family. Sophie’s murder mystery musical, ‘The Mystery of Mr E’ is available on Amazon Prime now. She is also a bestselling poet who has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Award, a self-help writer, creator and host of the podcast How To Hold A Grudge, and the founder of the Dream Author coaching programme for writers. She lives in Cambridge, England, where she is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College.
Sue lives and works in Warwickshire. Her first rejection letter came at the age of nine, after submitting a short story ‘Sally’s Cake’ to BBC Radio Children’s Hour. But she persevered! Since then, her work has been published in all sorts of media, including BBC History Magazine, Times Higher Education, London Evening Standard, Financial Times, The Australian, and a clutch of tabloid newspapers. She loves the historical detective work of exploring the past, and is the author of Dark Side of the Cut, A History of Crime on Britain’s Canals (The History Press 2023) and Through the Keyhole, Sex, Scandal and the Secret Life of the Country House (The History Press 2015). Sue also enjoys mentoring non-fiction writers. When she’s not glued to a laptop, she can be found out on the canal towpath as a volunteer for the Canal & River Trust charity.
Tom is a writer and musician based in Liverpool. Tom has published three books of poetry and performed his poems at Glastonbury Festival and on Channel 4 TV. In recent years, Tom’s work has increasingly had a wellbeing focus, and includes running writing workshops which take inspiration from the senses, the body and the natural world.
William is an award winning writer of film, television and theatre. His work includes Common as Muck, The Sins, Burton and Taylor, Made in Dagenham and The Great Escaper. He is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University.