I’ve Won an Award!

Between Festivals and a New Book

I have been writing a new book. It doesn’t have a title yet, nor a publisher, but I’m writing it together with my husband Peter and we’re just about half-way through. Like my recent book, The Tennis Champion Who Escaped the Nazis, it is based on a true story. It also has a World War II theme: Nazis in Vienna – and also Japanese prisoners of war in Java. It’s an exciting family saga that takes place over a hundred years. I will let you know its progress.

Meanwhile, I’ve entered a few writing competitions. The first was for travel writing and run by Anthology luxury lifestyle magazine. I made it onto their long list, although I didn’t get any further. Yesterday I discovered that my book, The Tennis Champion Who Escaped the Nazis, has won third prize in the Memoir category of the 2025 BookFest – a competition that’s part of a writing festival in California and also online.

Coming soon, I’ll be speaking at Warminster Book Festival and Swanage Literary Festival, and I’ll be on a panel with two other authors at Frome Festival. The panel talk is called The War’s Long Shadow: Writing WW2 80 Years On. I’ll also have a table at Frome Publishing Fair, and at the grand opening of a new cat- and book-themed café called Puss in Books. A few more library talks are also in the pipeline, including Yeovil and Wells. See my Events page for up-to-date times and locations.