I'm Irish, and l have lived in Brussels on and off for over thirty years. I loved my job as an EFL teacher, but that came to an end when my husband's employer decided to send us overseas on a series of expat assignments in the US and the UK. I became an Expat Mum, and although not gainfully employed, I had the opportunity to spend extra time nurturing my kids. To prevent my brain from shrivelling, I began to contribute articles and restaurant reviews to expat magazines. And that's how I discovered a love for stringing words together. Romance is the genre that motivates me to sit in front of my laptop. Weaving plots, set in Belgium or France, keeps me up at night, as does the banter of my flawed characters. I relish commuting between my life in my fiction and the real one in Brussels.

Connecting with writers who have self-published or who are thinking of self-publishing. Exchanging opinions with writers of romance Hearing from writers based in Belgium, the Benelux or France.

I have made and sold miniature shops, for e.g. bakeries, chocolate shops, souvenir shops, perfume shops etc. Each one is made from scratch and takes hundreds of hours to make. In fact, creating a miniature world requires the kind of dedication and attention to detail, as writing a novel does.

BE

Let's hope the Cheshire Summer School will open doors to what has been elusive so far.