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 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 appears in The Cincinnati Review, The Citron Review, The Vestal Review, Wigleaf, Fictive Dream, BULL, Aspier, Defenestration Magazine, Gooseberry Pie, SEXTET, Flash Fiction Online, Tiny Molecules, Paragraph Planet, Blood+Honey, Ink Sweat, & Tears and Trash Cat Lit, and I’ve placed in competitions including, most recently, Bath, Bournemouth, Cranked Anvil, Bridport, Smokelong, Frogmore, and Oxford Flash Fiction. I’m on the editorial board of Best Small Fictions and I’m the co-founder/editor of Inkfish Magazine and Press.