The Writers of Wales Database

SPEDDING, SALLY

’Rhandirmwyn’, Bonllwyn, Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, SA18 2EF
Tel: 01269 598968
Email: sallyspedding@btinternet.com
Website: www.sallyspedding.com

Poet, short story writer and novelist. Born in Porthcawl, Sally later studied sculpture in Manchester and London and is still a practising and exhibiting artist. She taught in various secondary schools until finally fifteen years at Ysgol Gyfun Tregib at Llandeilo. She is an experienced Lifelong Learning tutor and is currently a Creative Writing Workshop tutor at Leicester University. Sally has been a speaker and competition judge at the annual Writers Conference in Winchester, and regularly adjudicates various national writing competitions including the Coast to Coast short story and poetry competition and the Welsh Poetry Prize 2011.

Sally was Nottingham Festival International Short Story winner in 1980 and Forward Press Top 100 Poet, with a £3,000 prize in 1997. These wins encouraged her to write seriously whilst teaching. Sally went on to win the H.E. Bates Prize for Short Stories in 2000 and the Ann Tibble Award for Poetry in 2001. Her poetry and short fiction has featured in The New Writer, Paris Atlantique, Interpreters House, Upstart!, Cambrensis etc. Sally also illustrates own children’s stories. She secured a two–book deal with Macmillan in 2000 with more crime mysteries to follow. Most recently, Sally was a finalist in the 2009 John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry and won first prize for poetry in the Aesthetica Creative Works Competition 2010.

Sally has returned to Carmarthenshire and has a house in the French Pyrenees, where she spends many months of the year. She finds both Wales and France complex and fascinating countries. Her time in Wales (lovely memories of a wonderfully wild childhood on the sand dunes and escaping with her husband to a rural life keeping sheep and ponies) inspired the setting of A Night with No Stars (Allison & Busby, 2005). The setting of Prey Silence (Allison & Busby, 2006) is inspired from her own observations from her times in France. Her latest crime mystery novel, Cold Remains, set near Rhandirmwyn's old lead mines, is to be published by Sparkling Books early in 2012.  Malediction, her noir thriller set in France, will be published in 2013.


Selected Publications
Wringland (Macmillan, 2001)
Cloven (Macmillan, 2002)
A Night With No Stars (Allison & Busby, 2005)
Prey Silence (Allison & Busby, 2006)
Come and Be Killed (Severn House, 2007)
Strangers Waiting (Bluechrome Publishing, 2008)
Cold Remains (Sparkling Books, 2012)
Malediction (Sparkling Books, 2013)

Contributed to:
The Best British Crime Stories (contributor) (Allison & Busby, 2003)
Crime on the Move (contributor) (Do-Not Press, 2005) 
The Cool EP (Mono) (contributor) (Bluechrome, 2008)
The Best Short Stories of the Year (Turner Maxwell Books, 2009)
Even More Tonto Short Stories (contributor) (Tonto Books, 2010)
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime Stories (contributor) (Constable & Robinson, 2010)

Eligible Writers on Tour subjects offered:

1. Creative writing workshops in poetry, short and longer fiction
2. Reading/ discussing own work

AGE RANGE: All ages.