About

Terri_1A bit about me…
Hmmm, not so easy is it? I’ve stared at this blank page for so long wondering which aspect of myself to put here. I’ve written biogs before but they are specific to an audience. To agents and editors, I’ve listed the publications I’ve been published in and competitions I’ve entered or won. To Leicester Writers’ Club members I’m known for my good writing and great critique.

To employers I’ve listed the schools I’ve worked in and volunteered in: The many scenery I painted for Cossington School, costumes I made  for Rawlins. Scenery, costumes and props for years of Humphrey Perkins productions. And not forgetting the Art Club activities for Longslade School. Those people don’t know anything about the side of me that writes!

To my family I’m the creative flake who makes weird jewellery and outlandish clothes and does country fairs at weekends. To my children I’m the one who likes extreme picnics and made obsessive numbers of photo albums to catalogue their growing up. “You have CHILDREN!” said one member of the Writers’ Club, after she’d known me for three years. She looked horrified, but swears it was only surprise.

I compartmentalise my life, I know I do. This manifests itself with bags. I have a hessian bag that I take to school, it has classroom keys and door codes and a camera card reader in it. I put things into it over the weekend, that I want to take, but will have forgotten by Monday morning. I have a different bag that I take to LWC events. The satchel  has a notebook and pencil and a list of members names as a reminder. It used to have all manner of committee stuff in it, but it’s a lot lighter these days.

It works well, this pick-up-and-go method of organising myself. There’s a vintage suitcase for taking to craft fairs with price tickets, receipt books and display equipment in it. Lately there is a rucksack with walking boots and a compass, wet-wipes and some picnic luxuries, like black pepper, that get forgotten in the rush of packing fresh food.

So my life is a series of separate bags. That’s how I like it. As yet there has never been an occasion where I would need to take all of my family and Leicester Writers’ Club and the School I work at, out to a weekend craft fair, for a walk and a picnic… but this biography is as close as I’ve been.