About

Born into a family of eccentrics and raised in a haunted house, I developed an early interest in making things up. After completing my BA at Oxford, I lived in Boston, Massachusetts. There, my jobs ranged from babysitter and box-assembler to researcher and lecturer at Harvard, where I also completed my PhD. Since returning to the UK, I’ve taught Creative Writing at Lancaster and Chester Universities and held a writing fellowship at Chester. I’m now a creative writing lecturer, teaching for Comma Press and The University of Hull.

My first novel, The Monster’s Wife, came out with Barbican Press and was shortlisted for the Scottish First Book of the Year Award. A subsequent novel, The American Girl, was published by William Morrow (US) and Harper Collins (UK) and translated into Korean by Tomato Publishing – both books have been optioned for film. My poems and short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies like Best British Crime Stories, magazines like Strix, Fictive Dream, Frogmore Press, Storyglossia, Momaya, Needle, & Cake, and been placed competitions including most recently – Bath, Bournemouth, Bridport, Frogmore, and Oxford Flash Fiction. I am currently working on my first collection of short stories.