Passionate About... Writing
I have always loved creative and commercial writing and my first job after leaving school was Commercial Scriptwriter for Signal Radio in Staffordshire. I was there for five years and wrote an average of 100 radio commercials a month; always thinking of new ways to entice listeners to buy cars, double glazing and fitted kitchens, amongst other things!
Since then I’ve written for magazines and television and have had some books published… a few more details of which are here below. I think this would be a good point to give a shout out to my mum, Jean Turner, who was a Head of English Department teacher and who encouraged me from a very young age to read and write as much as possible.
Books
Current Project
Burnt Wood Farm is a horror story; the grisly tale of how a seemingly innocent family holiday on the Cornish coast ends in bloodshed and betrayal. I have recently finished the final draft manuscript and am now beginning to write the screenplay. I was writing Burnt Wood Farm during the 10 months we were homeless, and never was it more apparent that writing can offer escape and sanctuary when the real world is only offering heartache.
Underneath the Underground is the book title for several children’s stories about the adventures of the mice who live on the London Tube network.
The mice who live at Wimbledon play tennis, at Westminster they talk politics, at St Paul’s they sing in the church choir… you get the idea!
Copies available in the links below:
As mentioned in the Passionate About Ending Domestic Violence page, this novel is loosely based upon some of my own experiences of surviving an abusive and violent relationship.
I wrote The Absolutely Animal Free Cookbook after filming Absolutely Animals for Channel 4.
Back then it would not have been commercially viable to include the word ‘vegan’… how times have changed!
Radio & Television
Apart from the aforementioned radio commercial work I have written and presented numerous features for radio… books, films, holidays – where there’s a product there’s a review to be written!
More recently I’ve spent the last several years writing the scripts for the TV series Crafty Beggars and Brits Rescue Romanian Dogs.
Magazines
Back in the day I used to write features for OK! Magazine and have great memories of interviewing Oliver Tobias, Linda Davidson and Jack Wild. Perhaps the most memorable was interviewing William Shatner as it necessitated a trip to the stables in LA where his beloved horses were in residence!
The Honda Pride magazine was a joy to work for and I drove various Honda models from the UK to Paris, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Norway, Sweden and Lapland – great overseas adventures worth writing home about.
One of the wonderful things about turning ‘junk to funk’ is sharing your creative projects with others, and numerous ‘crafty features’ for various magazines has been a great way to show fellow crafters what I’ve turned some random item of rubbish into!
