1. Why do you write novels?

Because reading stories and telling stories is a compulsion. I told stories to my children as they grew up, to beguile them out of tantrums or to entertain them on family walks, and when I finally had the time to myself, I began to write. There is a magic, an utter delight in conjuring worlds and characters into being – and then discovering that others enjoy inhabiting those worlds and meeting those characters, as they take on a life of their own.

2. Who inspired you?

My father was a great storyteller, who could weave magic out of words. I loved watching my own children listening, entranced and delighted, as he spun stories out of the most unlikely beginnings. Both my parents were keen readers and I grew up surrounded by books; undoubtedly, my love of storytelling and reading can be traced back to them. More recently, one of my literary inspirations is Margaret Atwood, whose humanity and wisdom shines through her works. A publisher who took the manuscript of ‘Calm’ to a full read fed back to me that they had heard echoes of Atwood’s voice in the writing – one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever been paid!

3. What’s the essence of your style? The part, if removed, is not your voice anymore?

This is very hard to answer. I hope there is a kindness to my writing. I don’t particularly temper my vocabulary to a young adult audience and there are literary echoes in there which reflect my lifelong love of literature. Some of my current students have spotted the odd ‘Macbeth’ reference in ‘Calm’!

4. What was your dance-around-the-kitchen moment in writing?

Actually, it was a lose-the-dog-on-a-dog-walk moment, when I was so busy having a revelation about the plot that I completely lost track of my labrador. We found each other in the end! I can’t explain the revelation without too big a spoiler, but it was a plot flaw that had been niggling at me, and I suddenly realised what was going on – as if the story had been there all along and I just had to find it.

5. What do you want to accomplish in your writing career?

To complete the ‘Calm’ trilogy in a way and to a standard that satisfies me is my immediate aim. I’m not wanting fame and fortune, but to move my readers, to make them think and feel and question and imagine – that’s a wonderful thing to be part of. I’d love to explore writing a theatre script, too.

6. Can you ever envisage not writing novels - running out of ideas or energy?

I’m late to publication and have lots of ideas – so no, not at the moment – I’m more worried (a spot of Keats here) ‘that I may cease to be before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain’.

7. What advice would you give to your younger self?

I could say, start writing sooner – but in a strange way, I feel that ‘Calm’ came when I was ready to write it. I’ve always written – letters, diaries, playscripts for a school drama club… I’m a teacher, and have always channelled my creativity into designing lessons. I wrote short stories when my children were younger. So I think I’d say, it will come. Enjoy the stage you’re at, and don’t fret about what might be. I don’t regret waiting until now to write a novel.

8. Away from writing, what are your passions, and what do they mean to you?

‘Calm’ envisages a world without passion, and it has been one of the challenges in the writing to explore what my young protagonists have been missing in their lives – those things that light fires within us – art and music and creativity among them. The theatre, for me, is a lifelong love; I’ve been known to dissolve in tears at the simple sight of a curtain rising at the start of a play! I love walking in the UK countryside, another passion that fed into ‘Calm’. I’m also a person of faith – my church community and the love I find there, both inward and outward looking, sustain me in a very real way.

9. How would your best friend describe you?

Hmm. Kind, I hope. Well-meaning. Probably worries too much, especially about living up to other people’s expectations – I’m a people-pleaser, which isn’t always a good thing to be, but I’m unlikely to undergo a personality transplant at this stage.

10. What’s a significant question to ask you, that no other interview has to date, and what’s the answer, only for New2theScene?

You’ve saved the most challenging question to the end! A student once asked me (not in an interview – more in a ‘can I distract my teacher and waste a bit of this lesson’ kind of way), what would be my chosen superpower? I think it would be an empathy-zapper – whenever I came across conflict or arguments, I could immediately use my superpower to enable each side of the argument to understand the other’s point of view. And in a way, that’s what the best fiction does, isn’t it? Enabling readers to stand in other people’s shoes and feel what it’s like to be them.