About me

I always knew that I was going to do something that involved horses when I grew up: on leaving school I trained to become a riding instructor. Working with horses isn't just a job, it's a way of life; but while it's a wonderful way of spending your time, one of the downsides is that it tends not to pay very well.

In order to make ends meet I turned to writing during my spare time; first of all short fiction stories, mainly for PONY and Horse & Pony magazine, but also cartoon-strip text for girls comics too. Michael Williams, the then-editor of PONY magazine was incredibly encouraging and suggested that I tried my hand at writing factual articles as well. Needless to say, the first one I wrote was then promptly rejected - but only on the grounds that he'd just commissioned a similar article. So I sent it off to another magazine which had just started up; Your Horse editor Liz Benwell not only published it, but asked me to become a regular contributor. 

Before long I was writing five or six articles a month for Your Horse and PONY, and had also become an agony aunt for both magazines.     

One thing led to another, and with some encouragement from an English teacher at my old school, I wrote my first book (about saddlery) in partnership with a friend, Sarah Viccars. It took us a long time to find a publisher, but once we'd got a foot in the stable door so to speak, we promptly wrote another one, this time inspired by my labours as an equestrian agony aunt.

After a spell as a magazine editor myself, I eventually returned to teaching, this time in a self-employed capacity. I continue to teach on a freelance basis as well as to write, and have branched out into dogs, writing articles for Your Dog magazine as well as books. In addition to factual books, I've also returned to writing fiction which is just so much fun!