A Q and A session with Alana Beth Davies.

Kathy Biggs

After many years as a nurse in Yorkshire, Kathy gained a BA at Hatfield Poly with Literature as a major.

She travelled to Mid Wales with her husband in the 1980s to work for a couple running a small camping and walking holiday business. She says: “We came for the season and never left! Buying a semi derelict farm cottage with no water or electricity in Radnorshire and set about making a home for ourselves.”

During the 1980s and 90s Kathy had a number of different jobs: Staff Nurse; YTS Supervisor; Job Club Leader and Foster Carer. She also trained to be a homeopath at The Welsh School of Homeopathy in Swansea.

More recently, Kathy worked as Nurse/Manager at The Bracken Trust Cancer Support Centre in Llandrindod and then became the Advocacy Service Co-ordinator for Age Concern Powys. This was a role she enjoyed enormously until the job ended (redundancy due to lack of funding) in September 2016.

Not certain as what to do following her redundancy, Kathy discovered writing. She enrolled on an 8 week Lifelong Learning course hosted by The Wyeside in Builth. It was provided by Aberystwyth University and involved 2 hours per week tuition on Short Story writing. Later she enrolled on further 8-week courses in script writing, poetry and novel writing.

Honno Press published Kathy’s first novel The Luck in 2022. Her second novel Scrap was published in June 2023. It was the Welsh Books Council book of the month in July 2023. Kathy was the Welsh Libraries Author of The Month for July 2023.

In addition to writing, Kathy is a keen, but often overwhelmed, gardener who also loves river and sea swimming.