About me

I’ve always loved making up stories and using my imagination. I remember once making my younger sister and cousin pretend to be lions in a zoo, only for our heads to get stuck between the bars of a metal fence!

Growing up, I spent a few years being flown between England where I lived with my dad and stepmum, and Zimbabwe where my mum and sister lived. This gave me lots of chances for real adventures, but I was just as happy exploring between the pages of a brilliant book. Later on another sister and brother came along for me to try out my own story ideas on. After finishing school I went to university to read more books – my favourites were Shakespeare, Chaucer and Edgar Allen Poe who had all the best funny, gruesome and scary bits. Then I found a production job in publishing and worked with books for a few years longer.

It’s my absolute privilege to now write stories for real readers like you. It took a long time and an awful lot of tea and biscuits before any of them were good enough to be turned into an actual book. Then the magic happened – my first children’s book, Wishyouwas, won the WriteMentor Children’s Novel Award in 2019 and was also shortlisted for the Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition. It published in September 2021 with Bloomsbury. My first picturebook, The Fire Fox, published in October 2021 with Two Hoots.

In my spare time I still love travelling to far-flung places and swimming in anything bigger than a puddle. I live in London with my husband, daughter and two rescue cats called P.O. And Poppy.