Iona left her native land in 1981 and spent three years in the West of Ireland. She married a Scot and the couple made their home in the Scottish Borders.
Iona is actively involved with the local literary scene and has taken part in the annual Borders Book Festival at Melrose. She is a member of the Borders Writers’ Forum and held the position of secretary for seven years. She is also a member of the Society of Authors.
Although not confined to any particular genre, Oliver feels most comfortable in that magical space between reality and fantasy; the space into and out of which children slip so easily in their play; the place of dreams and myths and legends and deeply ingrained in many cultures across the globe.
John has a great career in teaching and loves his job. The youngsters he teaches are excellent sources of inspiration and he finds it useful when writing dialogue and forming characters, to draw upon some of the things he sees and hears at school! John is a natural story-teller and greatly enjoys shaping ideas into tales and fully-developed novels.
With a passion for history and languages, Simon writes thrillers that weave a tale of deception and murder stretching from ancient Rome to the present day.
She is also the founder of Circle of Hope, a charitable initiative under whose umbrella she set up two entities, Beacon of Hope and “Wanna Read?”: Beacon of Hope offers the gift of light, in the form of solar light kits, to children in developing countries; “Wanna Read?” offers young patients access to a variety of books during their visit to hospitals and clinics. The innovative reading initiative provides a fun and educational environment to promote the power of healing through reading, and to help children broaden their literary and creative horizons during their recovery process.
In addition to all of the above, Sheikha Shamma still finds time to write! A regular columnist for The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi, she also delivers powerful messages to young readers through her beautiful books. Focusing on moral values and current issues, she hopes to encourage ethical behaviour and ecological awareness , whilst promoting a love of books and of reading.
W. E. LAKE
Wendy Lake works as a General Practitioner in Cheshire, after five years working as a Children’s Doctor. She loves reading and writing to help her keep a good work-life balance. She is a member of the Society of Medical writers. She hopes her middle-grade fiction books take children to imaginary places, like she remembers escaping to through books as a child. She enjoys spending family time with her husband Simon and their two daughters Molly and Bella.
ROBERT BREUSTEDT
Robert has written numerous humorous articles for newspapers and has had short stories published in anthologies and literary magazines. He is a member of the Borders Writers’ Forum, the Kelso Writers’ group and the Federation of Writers (Scotland). Robert loves to encourage emerging young writers, most recently from as far away as Australia. He has appeared on local radio here in the UK, in Majorca and in Atlanta, Georgia.
CHRISTINA REIS
Chris is a retired nurse, midwife and health visitor. Her last post was as a health advisor to asylum seekers and travellers. She now works with them as a volunteer.
She wrote her first novel at fifteen years of age and since then has written prize winning short stories, poetry and plays, and her work is published regularly in ‘The Writer’, a magazine produced by the Society of Medical Writers. Her poems have also been published in collections of poetry by various authors. She is now launching her first published novel.
Chris was a single parent with five children and has eight grandchildren. Born in the UK, she has Nigerian, English and Scottish ancestry, but apart from a year in India as a midwife and two years as an agency nurse in London, she has spent most of her life in the north of England.
PATRICIA GOODWIN
Patricia Goodwin was born in the South of England but has spent most of her adult life in various parts of the North, mainly in Yorkshire. She started writing for pleasure, after retiring from a long and varied career in nursing, teaching, running her own hotel and latterly nursing home.
Nine years ago she moved to the Scottish Borders to be closer to family. Here she joined the Borders Writers Forum and Kelso Writers.
She writes stories for young children, adult fiction and memoirs. Autumn in August is her first novel.
ANNETTE REIS
Author, poet, teacher, singer, actress.
Annette was born in Stockport Cheshire to a Nigerian father and a black mixed heritage mother. As an adult she visited her father's family in Nigeria for the first time. In a traditional naming ceremony that would have been given if she had been there as a baby, Annette was named Omowale. This beautiful Yoruba name means Child Come Home. It was the inspiration for her book Dream the Red Earth, alongside her vivid impressions of Nigeria on her first visit.
In her early years Annette wrote stories and poems encouraged by her sister, writer Christina Reis. Later it was author Peter Kalu’s encouragement as the creative director of the black writer’s group Cultureword/Commonword that led to her embarking on this children’s novel. As a member of Stockport Writer’s Group Annette regularly won prizes for her short stories.
Annette has also co-written a play, with theatre director Hazel Roy, depicting the involvement of Nina Simone in the American civil rights movement. She played the role of Nina in her one-woman performance that won an award at the Kathmandu International Theatre Festival. Annette is also a singer on the jazz, opera and contemporary circuit and has made T.V and radio appearances.
STEWART SHALE
After a career ranging across engineering, quality control, training and sales management Stewart took early retirement in 2004, and moved to France with his partner Diane to renovate a two hundred-year-old farmhouse. After remodelling as a holiday let business, they ran it for six years before relocating to the Scottish Borders. Married in 2015, they have a joint family of five children, and fifteen grandchildren. Following Stewart's retirement, they have since moved back down to north east England.
Stewart travelled extensively during his wife's career at British Airways, loves writing and painting, and chaired an art group in England. He is a member of the Scottish Association Of Writers; and as a member of The Kelso Writers Group, he had anthologies published and received an award for a play he wrote for a Borders theatre group. He has published two biographies and, more recently, published Ashes in the Wind, a book of 28 short stories. Stewart is currently working on two more books.
