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. I’m on the editorial board of Best Small Fictions and I’m the co-founder/editor of Inkfish Magazine and Press.
My first novel, The Monster’s Wife 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 latest flash fiction, poems, and short stories appear in Smokelong Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, The Citron Review, The Vestal Review, Wigleaf, Moon City Review, Flash Fiction Online, Fictive Dream, BULL, Aspier, Defenestration Magazine, Gooseberry Pie, SEXTET, Tiny Molecules, Paragraph Planet, Blood+Honey and Ink Sweat, & Tears. I have been shortlisted for the Bath, Bridport & Oxford Flash Fiction competitions, and won the Smokelong Quarterly Workshop Competition.