Members

I worked for many years as an academic and later in the NHS as a therapist. Initially I wrote academic papers before branching out into fiction writing. I joined my local writing group Walton Wordsmiths nearly fifteen years ago and the group is still going strong. Here I found companionship, inspiration, encouragement and a group of likeminded friends. I write because I feel inspired… the novel wants to be written, although I often have no idea where the ideas come from, it’s like a stream of consciousness! Each novel takes me at least a couple of years to complete. I have now written three novels. The first two have already been published by SCRIPTORA, in association with the Society of Women Writers and Journalists (SWWJ). The third ‘The Asymmetric Man’ was published on 23d November 2023 – also by SCRIPTORA. Ironically, ‘The Asymmetric Man’ is the first in the trilogy, but the last to be published. ‘The Girl at Conway Place’ and ‘Sunrise at An Lac’ come next.

Amanda Thomas specialises in social and medical history and has a background in journalism and media PR. Books include Cholera - The Victorian Plague (Pen and Sword History, 2015), The Lambeth Cholera Outbreak of 1848-1849: The Setting, Causes, Course and Aftermath of an Epidemic in London (McFarland, 2009), and the biography of the scientist Dr. Winifred Brenchley (deposited at Southwark and Rothamsted, 2006); she also contributed to Dr. Andrew Hann’s The Medway Valley a Kent Landscape Transformed (Victoria County History, Phillimore, 2009). Broadcast work includes The Flying Archaeologist (BBC4, 2012) and Who Do You Think You Are? (Wall to Wall Media/BBC1, 2012-13). Amanda is Editor of the historical journal, The Clock Tower, and Editorial Consultant to Harpendia magazine.

Ann Evans has been writing most of her adult life. She says it began as a hobby and somehow became a way of life. She writes for children, teenagers and adults, as well as articles for a variety of different magazines. For 13 years Ann worked for the Coventry Telegraph as a feature writer, writing about her favourite topics – food, animals, gardening and travel. She runs a regular writing workshop, and goes into schools running workshops and giving talks on writing.

Born in Poland, Barbara studied German Philology with English at Humboldt University in Berlin.

When teaching children, Barbara found that telling stories to her pupils accelerated their ability to learn. Barbara was then inspired to write her first book, Cartwheeling Chestie Nut, about which Mrs Pip Otton, Headteacher of Laburnum Grove Junior School, Bognor Regis, wrote “I was impressed by the way the book so clearly promotes the use of speech in a charming way that would appeal to children, both boys and girls […] The charming story could certainly switch uninspired children back on to reading.”

Barbara then published Nic and His Nutty N’Uncle and Giant’stalestold and has since followed these up, in 2015 with Nic’s Nutty N’Uncle and The Giant Tells More Tales.

Barbara began her writing career in 1974 when she went to work as a reporter on NewsShopper, a ‘free’ weekly newspaper series in the North Kent/South London area, quickly stepping up to look after all the editorial content. She then moved on to realise her ambition to work on consumer magazines, working on Prima, Home Improvements Journal and Ideal Home magazine – mixing sub-editing with feature writing. Following this she moved to B2B publishing, working on a number of successful market-leading titles in the construction industry, covering the heating, ventilating, plumbing, bathrooms and kitchens markets, first as an Assistant Editor and then Editor. During this time she was the launch editor for Bathrooms magazine (1986), as well as a number of supplements on specialised topics.

After 25 years in the B2B marketplace, Barbara moved into PR for three years before taking a six month career break at the beginning of 2009 to adopt her son. Barbara set up her own company, Bigg-In Words Ltd in September 2009 and offers a mix of public relations and editorial services. Clients have included some prestigious manufacturers/suppliers from the heating and plumbing industry, and now mainly comprise smaller, local companies and two steadily growing cancer support charities, The Chartwell Cancer Trust and the CCT Tiger Ward. Barbara has been an SWWJ member since 2011, joining Council in 2012 as Editor of The Journal. She became the Vice Chairman in 2014/15, and subsequently served as Chair for four years, stepping down in September 2019.

Benita from St Albans, Hertfordshire, is a former LAMDA drama teacher and festival
adjudicator. She is the author of British Chimney Sweeps, Five Centuries of Chimney
Sweeping, and Chimneys and Chimney Sweeps, published by Bloomsbury UK, as well
as Edwin and The Climbing Boys, a children’s historical novel. Benita enjoys writing for
the stage and screen. Pick Up, a radio play, was broadcast in New York as part of the Big
Apple Short Radio Comedy Festival. She is the co-director of J.A.B.S. Productions Ltd, a
four-woman film company that has won first-place awards for short films at international
film festivals. Benita’s feature screenplay adaptation of Patrick Forsyth’s crime novel,
Once A Thief, and her dramedy feature screenplay, Portia’s Penguin, have both secured
first-place awards and many nominations. Benita is the honorary treasurer of the SWWJ
and a member of WGGB.

Beth loves speaking different languages and travelling to out of the way places. A Welsh mother and a Lancashire father mean she has a complicated mix of imagination and practical common sense. She took a degree in French Language and Literature and later a Master’s degree in French Stylistics. After a teaching career in several countries, she settled in the Thames Valley. Settled, that is, except when the travelling bug takes her. An excuse for this is that she has published a number of travel articles, some of which have won prizes.

Her Regency Tales are stories of intrigue, adventure and romance, with a few real people in among the cast of characters who find themselves caught up in events rather outside their normal lives. She hasn’t yet put Napoleon in a story, but he’s on the waiting list. On the principle of ladies first, especially in the Regency era, Lady Hester Stanhope played a small but vital role in Scandalous Lady.

From her own experience of life in Turkey, Beth likes to add a touch of exotic to some of her stories. But adventure and romance can just as easily occur in London, Bath or Brighton.

For more information, visit her at the following links.

Claire Dyer’s novels are published by Quercus, The Dome Press, Matador and Pegasus. Her latest novel is ‘What We Thought We Knew’. She has also had four poetry collections published by Two Rivers Press. Claire teaches creative writing and runs Fresh Eyes, an editorial and critiquing service, is Poetry Consultant to the Council of the SWWJ, Reviews Co-ordinator for Two Rivers Press, and volunteers as a poetry archivist at the University of Reading’s Special Collections department. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London and is represented by Broo Doherty at DHH Literary Agency.

Claire brings a wealth of editorial experience and a fresh pair of eyes to your work and, whatever stage you’re at in your writing career, can help make your opening chapters WOW your reader; help you spot plot holes or narrative inconsistencies; give advice on settings, timelines and characterisation, and make your manuscript submission ready via either a detailed read-through of your first 3 chapters with editorial comments, a summary report & submission advice, or a structural edit of your novel with a summary report and submission advice. Full fees and T&Cs are available on request and Claire offers a 15% discount for SWWJ members. Some recent successes for clients have included agent representation, book deals and poetry publication.

Dee, originally from the East End and now living in Southend, writes mainly non fiction books about Essex and the East End, but does have a couple of novels and a poetry compilation out there.  She is passionate about the inclusion of disability in novels and about the proper use of the apostrophe!  Next release, for April 2019, is Struggle and Suffrage in Southend on Sea, published by The History Press.

Doreen is a published playwright, a trained journalist and news editor. She was a staff reporter on newspapers based in East London and Essex. As well as working as a Public Relations Officer for local authorities, she is a former editor of the SWWJ’s own magazine, The Woman Writer. Doreen has won a number of awards for her one-act plays and is also involved in writing audition and exam pieces for professional actors. Enquiries, articles (3000 words max) and scripts up to 50 minutes long may be sent to Doreen at: doreen.friend@swwj.co.uk

Francesca has enjoyed writing since she was a child, largely influenced by a Welsh mother who was good at improvised story telling. A history graduate and qualified teacher, she decided to turn her writing hobby into a career in 2006 when she joined a writing class.

She is also a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association.

Writing as both Francesca Capaldi and Francesca Burgess, she has had numerous short stories published in magazines in the UK and abroad, as well as articles in several magazines and newspapers. Her short stories have been included in the anthologies 100 Stories for Haiti, Diamonds and Pearls and 7 Food Stories from Rome. She has also been placed or shortlisted in a dozen national writing competitions. Each month she writes a competition post for the Romantic Novelists' Association blog.

Three pocket novels have been published by DC Thomson. The first, Danger for Daisy, has been published as an ebook and will be available in large print from Ulverscroft in August 2020.

Her World War 1 saga, Heartbreak in the Valleys, was published by Hera Books in June 2020 and will be available on audio, produced by Ulverscroft, in September 2020.

Francesca was born and brought up in Sussex but currently lives in Kent with her family and a cat called Lando Calrission.

Jill lives by the sea in East Sussex and has had six books published plus a book of short stories. She went to Japan for a holiday and fell in love with the people and culture. This changed her life and she went to live there for a year and didn’t come back for seven. She opened her own English conversation school which she ran for seven years. Her first book is a memoir of this time, Cherry Blossoms, Sushi and Takarazuka, Seven Years in Japan.
Her Secret Samurai Trilogy draws on Jill’s knowledge of Japan and its history and myths. It is a time-slip story of two female samurai and was voted one of the best Japan related novels of the year by Savvy Tokyo Magazine.
Tama, the Extraordinary Cat, is a true story of a Japanese cat who saved a railway company and became a goddess. It’s for children, but also for people who love cats.
Jill went back to her roots with her latest novel, a romantic suspense called The Rocking Stone, set in the South Wales mining valleys of the early 20th century.
Jill writes about strong female characters and says, ‘I want my books to be uplifting and positive where female characters are concerned.’
She belongs to several local writing groups as well as the SWWJ and Historic Novels Society. Her interests include history, Japan, reading, gardening, current affairs and walking her dog.

Karen King writes psychological suspense and women's fiction and is celebrating her fortieth year of publication. She has also had 120 children’s books, two young adult novels, and several short stories for women’s magazines published.

Her early writing career was spent writing for Jackie and other teenage and children's magazines including Winnie the Pooh and Barbie. Her suspense novels The Mother In Law, The Perfect Stepmother and The Stranger in my Bed and her romantic novel The Cornish Hotel by the Sea all became International Amazon bestsellers and several of her books have been translated into other languages.

Karen is an experienced writing tutor, having been a part-time lecturer on the MA in Professional Writing and BA Illustration courses at Falmouth University, and a distance learning tutor for several writing schools.

She now lives in Spain and concentrates solely on writing.

I took up writing when I retired from a ‘proper’ job and decided I didn’t want to sit around all day doing nothing. I always loved reading and writing and started off with short stories then graduated to D C Thomson Pocket Novels of which I have had to date 43 published.

Chair of the SWWJ during its Centenary year 1994, Mary is still active on the Council, responsible for the Society's assisted-publishing initiative, SCRIPTORA.

A former teacher, she was a prolific free-lance magazine journalist in the 1980s and 90s, specialising in interviews with world-renowned writers, artists, actors and musicians. She is particularly thrilled to have interviewed Maya Angelou, Thomas Keneally and Cleo Laine.

Her feature on the Eden Project, A Vision of Eden, won her the SWWJ's coveted Violet Astor Rose bowl in 2002.

Also a dramatist, her work has been seen at the Edinburgh Festival and on the London Fringe. She has written radio plays and scripts for television, and plays, all of them published, for schools. Her first novel, Letters from Malta, came out in 1990; re-published in 2013 as an eBook, it reached an international readership. Although now in her eighties Mary is currently finishing her third novel and has a fourth at the draft stage; this one is set in the 1940s in Jamaica, where she was brought up.

'Writers never retire,' she says. 'There is always something to write about.'

Natalie writes contemporary and historical romantic fiction. She is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association (RNA), having graduated the organisation’s New Writers Scheme at her first attempt. She now has three published books, most recently Escape to the Cotswolds with HarperCollins HQ Digital. She has in the past few years sold over thirty short stories worldwide. In addition Natalie is a commissioned contributor to the RNA blog.

Pamela Birley, who writes professionally as Bradley Bernarde, joined the SWWJ in 1986 and was voted onto the Council as Minutes Secretary in 2003. After a year she became responsible for outings until, in 2005, she accepted the position of Honorary Secretary. Since relinquishing this post in April 2014, she has been SWWJ Chawton House Library Liaison Officer, which includes responsibility for the Society’s silver trophies on display at Chawton. Apart from having published three novels, The Apothecary’s Gift, To Thine Own Self and Pas de Deux for a Cop, and a number of short stories, Pamela has worked professionally as an editor, proof reader and a reviewer of both fiction and non-fiction.

After a short career as a Personal Assistant in the UK, Nairobi and Aden, Pamela followed her dreams and started working as a journalist on the Marlow Times in 1969, followed by six years with Farnham Castle Newspapers. She founded an RAF newspaper called 'The Spreading Oak' which was transmitted to all British Naval ships. Later she rescued the failing RAF Henlow Magazine, turning it into a successful glossy monthly.

Whilst living in Naples she wrote for the Financial Times magazine 'Resident Abroad' and ran an international writers' group. She organised a weekend creative writing school for the British Council which was attended by several nationalities, later publishing an anthology of their work which raised £4000 for several international charities - in just two days! Shortly before leaving Naples, she was the consultant on the second edition, which also raised a lot of money. A keen amateur ballet dancer, she and a friend were the choreographers on two pantomime productions - the bemused Neapolitans loved them! She has been trying to write the biography of a French choreographer for many years and thinks it is high time she finished it!

Upon returning to the UK she wrote freelance articles for Hampshire Life, and taught two weekly Creative Writing classes at the Petersfield College of Further Education. Although she didn't get funding. she would write to top agents and authors, asking them to give short talks to her students, and they all agreed; a quick whip-round the students enabled her to pay their expenses.

In 2000 her oral history book, 'Voices of Petersfield & District', was published by Tempus; it is still in print and now has a lovely new cover.

Pamela joined the SWWJ in 1976 and would often fly home from abroad to attend Society events. When finally she settled in the UK, she served on the Council for 9 years, organising speakers and running the monthly Thursday Workshops. After a break of several years, she rejoined the Council some five years ago, again as Speakers Co-ordinator. Pamela is now Vice Chair of the Society of Women Writers and Journalists.

Patrick has had more than a hundred books and countless articles published. He writes across a wide field: business, careers, self-help, also: humour, travel and, most recently, he has just had a novel, Long Overdue published. He is a member of two writing groups and active in the “writing world”; he writes regularly for Writing Magazine and speaks (and runs workshops) on topics including writing technique (especially non-fiction) and also on writing as a business, selling your work and allied skills such as public speaking.

Patrick has recently been appointed SWWJ honorary consultant for Marketing.

Journalist Sylvia Kent is a columnist and author of 12 books and five anthologies. Awarded Freelance Writer of the Year via Writing Magazine, she researched SWWJ history and the resulting book, The Woman Writer, was published by The History Press in 2010, coinciding with the centenary of the birth of former SWWJ President Joyce Grenfell. Sylvia's contribution to the Society have included roles on Council as Overseas Liaison (9 years) and Publicity Officer (5 years), and she is now SWWJ Archivist. She enjoys regular radio appearances on BBC Essex, Book Club on Phoenix 98fm and occasionally on national BBC. Currently working with Brentwood Gazette, Essex Life and speciality magazines, Sylvia is also Billericay Museum Trustee, VP of Brentwood Writers’ Circle and Essex Book Festival patron.

Valerie wrote regularly for both Horse & Rider magazine and Pony magazine for many years. She wrote a monthly page for Prediction magazine for 21 years, until it folded, on dream analysis and answered readers’ letters on their dreams. She did many live broadcasts on TV and radio on dreams. She has had articles in Horse & Hound and Writers’ News. Her first book Side Saddle Riding was published in 1978, written with a colleague. Subsequently she has published two books on dreams – an Illustrated Guide to Dreams and Dream Healing. Her latest book School to Music is available online, comprising a handbook in pdf format together with 3 downloadable music files. She has also revised and re-printed her grandfather’s 1911 book A Guide & History of Nevin, Morfa Nevin and Edern. She is also a poet, her first published poem being in her school magazine.

Vivien is an established short story writer and creative writing tutor, specialising in emotional, romantic, humorous and family-based stories for the women’s magazine (‘womag’) market. For more than thirty years, her stories have appeared regularly in many weekly and monthly UK magazines, including Woman’s Weekly, Take a Break’s Fiction Feast, The People’s Friend, My Weekly and The Weekly News. She is also a successful novelist, writing women’s fiction/domestic dramas for One More Chapter and Bloodhound Books. Vivien offers detailed and honest appraisals, and can advise on all areas of perfecting and preparing your manuscript for submission to your chosen magazine. Fees will depend on length of story, with 20% discount offered to SWWJ members. All enquiries, with a short (200 words) extract of your work in progress, by email in the first instance please: vivienhampshire@btinternet.com