ABOUT Anna
Do you remember the first time you noticed words on a page? I do. It was a children’s picture book that I’d looked at loads of times with my mum or my dad or my big sisters or brother. It had a big red dog and a cat and a ball in bright colours. But this time I wasn’t looking at them, I pointed at the strange black squiggles at the top of the page. What’s that? I asked. That’s the story, I was told. I was nearly three years old, and that’s when I decided I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be able to make that magic, to make marks that can lift someone into a world of wonder, that can transfer story from one person to another without speaking, without even meeting. And although I’ve done lots of other things in my life, and probably will keep finding distractions on a daily basis, I still want to be a writer.
Some of the other things I do you’ll find out about in these pages. I am a teacher and a reader and a long distance walker. I am sometimes a runner, always a mother, and I have a bit of an addiction to organizing things such as festivals, competitions, book groups and anything or anyone else that gets too close. I always say that being a novelist is the best job for a control freak – as the creator of worlds you are in charge of everything.
I’m particularly interested in the links between writing, walking and the landscape, and walking is part of my writing practice. In 2024 I completed a PhD called Taking the Reader into the Woods, based of the interconnected practices of walking in woodland and novel writing. My latest novel, Orca and Bird, was written as part of this project.
When I’m not sitting at my desk writing or gazing out of the window, I am often out walking in the West Yorkshire countryside with Fern the collie, getting inspiration from the land, the movement of my body and the air in my lungs.
