BIOGRAPHY:
I grew up in a working-class family in Cardiff, trained and worked as an NHS psychiatrist and psychotherapist in London – alongside writing and performing, including a stint as a stand-up comedian – and completed an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck in 2018. I have always divided my time between London and South Wales which looms large in all its sensory and biographical wonder at the end of the M4 in my mind, wherever I am.
Obsessed with class, family dynamics, and mental health, I write character-driven fiction concerning relationships, belonging, loss, and loneliness. I am fascinated by subtext, how characters enact what they cannot say, and passionate about exploring the boundaries of structure, including mosaic and hybrid forms, to enhance the sensory lens of a narrative, and the potential for nuance, and resonance.
My first collection of short stories, IN BED WITH MY SISTER, was written during a period of colossal cuts to our public services, arts and cultural life, in the name of austerity. Distressed and enraged by the impact of this on me and on those around me – patients, colleagues, friends and family – I was driven to distil these experiences onto the page. All of the resulting stories have either won prizes or been shortlisted in esteemed competitions: PICASSO’S FACE – winner, VS Pritchett Prize (2020), IN BED WITH MY SISTER and KISSING IN BERLIN – 1st prizes in Bath (2021) and Brick Lane Bookshop (2023) short story awards. FIX, 3rd prize winner in Brick Lane Bookshop (2021) award, is forthcoming in 22 FICTIONS: New Writing from Desperate Literature & Brick Lane Bookshop (Cheerio Publishing, June 2025).
My work appears in 20+ publications, e.g. Prospect magazine (2021), Royal Society of Literature Review (2021), Galley Beggar Press short story online longlist (2024), Take a Bite, Rhys Davies Short Story Award Anthology (Parthian, 2021), Aesthetica (2021, 2022) and 100 VOICES:100 Women share Stories of Achievement (Unbound 2022). Twice shortlisted for Hay Festival Writers at Work Programme (2024, 2025), I am an alumna of GRANTA’s short fiction workshop, 2024/2025.
Currently, I’m gathering ideas and material for a novel-length piece, a family drama featuring three sisters over six decades, inspired by the landscapes of South Wales and Federico Garcia Lorca’s play, THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA.
