According to her grandmother, Emma started writing stories at the age of four. She wrote fiction throughout her childhood until she penned a short story that won her a place at Oxford University to read Experimental Psychology.

It was another ten years before Emma summoned the courage to write again, in the mean time distracting herself with such things as becoming an information architect for websites, dabbling with being a designer dressmaker and working for a magazine publisher. She even went to such lengths as becoming a Psychology teacher for four years in the madness of convincing herself she wasn’t a writer.

Much to the relief of her long-suffering husband, she finally stopped messing about, faced up to the fact that not writing was like trying not to breathe, and wrote a young adult novel set in post-apocalyptic London.

Three years later she started a blog, founded a short story club and wooed a publisher through Twitter to secure her first book deal. Her debut novel Twenty Years Later will be released in October 2010.

Nowadays, Emma knows better than to avoid writing. Otherwise it comes to get her instead.

Heartache – The Red Book, 2010

The Guilty One – The Yin Book, 2010

From Dark Places – Self Published
SHORT STORY ANTHOLOGY: Whispering rooms, forbidden needs and love entangled with madness…

From Dark Places brings together eleven tales of things unseen and unwanted, things that lurk at the edge of vision and the people they brush against.

Available as an Ebook through Smash Words

Twenty Years Later To be published by Dystopia Press, October 2010

Post Apocalyptic Publishing

Short Story Club

Twitter

Is there a writer in the house?

The Chinese Whisperings project was well under way by the time I got involved, so I’ve felt like I was someone pulled out of the audience half way through the second act, when the director realised that an actor hadn’t shown up to the theatre.

I don’t know what made the person originally slated to write story number nine drop out, I hope it wasn’t something awful. The reason I worry about this is because I’m pleased I got to take their place, and I’d hate to be pleased at the cost of someone else’s misfortune.

Story number seven was being written when Paul got in touch with me. I had just started my Short Story Club, and so I’d been talking about short stories online, where our respective social media circles had overlapped. Truth be told, I’d been cyber-stalking following Paul for some time and I was just beside myself with glee when he offered me a place in the book.

I ran downstairs to tell my husband and to make a cup of tea (that’s very important) but I had already made up my mind. So what if I had already committed to writing two other short stories before my turn for Chinese Whisperings? So what if I had just started my own business? I’d find time for this!

It’s been a series of firsts; the first time I have ever collaborated with other writers on a project, the first time I have ever had a short story edited by people other than my internal censor and the first time I have been commissioned to write fiction, instead of press releases or web site copy.

Jodi and Paul have made me feel welcome and cherished, and wonderful spring-green friendships are growing out of the project, which I hadn’t expected at all. I’m so toe-curlingly delighted that Paul invited me up onto the stage. I stood there like an idiot, one step behind the rest of the cast for the rest of the play, but my goodness, what a buzz to be up there, on view, instead of down there, in the audience!

The waiting was harder than the writing. I worried about all kinds of things, the sheer number of unknowns were high-calorie food for my anxiety demons. What if I discovered I didn’t like writing collaboratively? What if the story preceding mine had no character that I wanted to work with? What if the editors hated my story? And so on. Worry, rinse, repeat.

Luckily for me, the stars were in alignment and the last four days of my ten day writing slot fell at the beginning of the first proper holiday I’ve taken in years. I decided to pick the character, and then not worry about it until I was in a holiday cottage in Devon with my family.

I picked one of the most minor characters; a homeless man that tries to give a girl a blanket. That gesture fascinated me. In freezing conditions, why did that man show such kindness? For me, whenever there is a ‘why?’ there is a story…

I’ve learnt to trust my unconscious mind when it comes to short stories. By the time it was my turn to write, my Short Story Club was in its second month. Thanks to the Club, and to a documentary I had seen a couple of years ago, I had a theme bubbling away in the depths, just waiting for the right opportunity to surface. I thought the idea through, did a little research and then sat down to write.

There are two important components of my newly developed short story writing ritual: tea and permission. The need for tea is, well, obvious. The permission thing? Well, I say to myself (out loud) “You have complete permission to write utter crap.”

It sounds silly when I tell you this, but it tells the dreaded Censor to just go away and bug someone else for a while. It enables me to relax, to give up the need for perfection (I’m a recovering perfectionist you see) and just get down to the writing. The story takes care of itself, once I get out of the way, and it was true for Heartache. The first draft was written in ninety minutes. I let it simmer for a couple of days, edited it and sent it in. In such a tight window, there isn’t time to let doubt seep in.

I wish I could say that I agonised over it, that I sweated blood to make the story for you, but I can’t. Once I knew why my protagonist was homeless, and how his relationship with his son worked, they just got on and told the story for me. I just watched them in my head and wrote it down. So if you like the story, you should think kindly of them. I was just the humble scribe.