I spent my twenties as a civil servant, my thirties and most of my forties as an advertising copywriter and it was only as I hurtled towards fifty, that I found the confidence to start digging down into myself to write more creatively.
Since then, there have been four Hazel Osmond books published and my short stories have won national competitions and been published in leading magazines. Also, in the last couple of years, I’ve been exploring Flash Fiction and have had work placed as well as short and longlisted in major competitions.
A strong thread running through my writing is humour. While other children embraced Enid Blyton, I ran towards Richmal Crompton’s ‘William’ books.
I’m fascinated by the way humour can sometimes make it easier to live with difficult situations, yet at other times will poke us awake to see what is unacceptable.
It can be comforting, cruel, liberating.
I don’t think being funny is any barrier to being serious. On the other hand, the least funny person I ever met kept up a constant stream of jokes …
Humour runs through many of my award-winning short stories and flash fiction too, but both forms also let me play with different, sometimes darker, tones. You can take a look at some of my work here.
And where do I do all this? In Northumberland – a beautiful, wild place where I’ve set two of my books: The First Time I Saw Your Face and The Mysterious Miss Mayhew.
