My Writing Journey
I wanted to be an ‘authoress’ when I was young, but that was not a career option in the days when girls were expected to dally with jobs between finishing their education and beginning their real work of being good wives, so I became a teacher, married young and had 3 children. My husband wanted to return to his birthplace so we left Liverpool and went to the Lake District. Cumbria was an alien place to me at first, but I grew to love it.
Sketches and short stories
During this time I read and read and read, and knew that writing the words that made books was what I wanted to do. I wrote sketches and short stories. Writing as Rosie Dee I have had several published in The People’s Friend, and Women’s Weekly and finally felt validated when I won the Writers’ and Artists’ short story competition.
BBC Radio 4: Heft Like The Herdwick
I joined a group of women writers and wrote a collaborative play, Heft like the Herdwick, which was broadcast on Radio 4. I and three of those writers produced a body of work based on motherhood, and as Mothers’ Ruin, performed at Ilkley Fringe Festival and other local venues.
A soap opera set in a fictional Lakeland village
‘Cawthwaite’ was my next venture. This was a soap opera set in a fictional Lakeland village, and written by me and three other women and posted online. It was great fun and I enjoyed writing about the characters I had dreamed up. Posting work so often meant writing to a deadline, and was great practice.
Romantic Novelists’ Association
I joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association and began work on my first novel, a romantic comedy. It was daunting but I learned the craft with my first two novels, and felt brave enough to send the third to an agent.
My ambition is to be a published author whose novels cheer and uplift those who read them.
