We are a small team of talented writers and we all have been working together to create this Anthology as well as work on ourselves and our own writing and careers.
Natalie Hill
Writer, inspiring author and Project Manager of Almost Home, Natalie, alongside her fellow Project Managers, led the development of the MA Creative Writing’s 2022, student-produced Anthology.
While working as a Bank Care Assistant, Natalie previously student BSc (Hons) English at Nottingham Trent University. She enrolled on a MA in Creative Writing to further her career aspirations as a Further Education Lecturer, develop her storytelling skills and strength her use of language.
D S Aldridge
Aspiring contemporary romance author and Project Manager of Almost Home, Demi has co-led the development of the student produced anthology for 2022.
Demi is an avid reader, and favours the fantasy and romance genres. She enrolled onto the MA Creative Writing at NTU to develop her writing skills and to meet new people after her recent move to Nottingham.
Courtney McPhail
Courtney Mcphail is one of the project managers. After graduating with a publishing degree, Courtney decided to pursue an MA to focus on her creative writing skills. She is a huge fan of romance, fantasy, and stories that involve LGBTQ+ characters and strong female heroines. Recently she curated an anthology on female empowerment and is now focusing on her screenwriting.
Kayleigh Jayshree
Kayleigh Jayshree (they/them) has been published by around 17 magazines, including Fawn Press, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Eponym Magazine, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and others. They have worked with BBC Contains Strong Language, Roundhouse Theatre, Contact Theatre, Hay Festival, Blues Kitchen, HOME Theatre, and others. They are working on their first poetry chapbook. They write in several forms and change when they get bored.
Georgia Appleby
Our sole outreach member, Georgia Appleby, gathered our guest authors included in the anthology. After completing her English undergraduate degree with a 2:1, Georgia is currently studying a Creative Writing MA. Georgia has recently been accepted into the 2022 PGCE secondary English course; she hopes to undertake a PhD in English Literature in the future to work towards becoming a lecturer.
Patricia Sweeney
Tricia is a committed christian, life-long learner and a poet. She has been a missionary, an
occupational therapist and recently a carer.
She enjoys singing in choirs, drama and painting. Until the lockdown she worked one day
each week volunteering at the local hospice, where she chatted to patients and gave hand
massages.
Mary Barnard
Mary Barnard is a teacher who recently switched careers to become a ghost-writer. She currently tutors English and volunteers with Action Tutoring and FairShare. Since her children have left home, she has been digging up her lawn and pottering in her greenhouse whilst composing poems for her Masters in Creative Writing.
Steve Katon
Steve lives with his wife and two teenage girls. When not reading, writing or watching something, he’ll be walking their springer spaniel.
He’s loved storytelling all his life. He really enjoys studying and discussing structure and understanding how and why stories work, but ultimately, he just love the thrill of escaping into another world.
On the MA, he’s continued my first love of children’s fiction (he’s previously written a Victorian magical trilogy), but has also found a brand-new love in scriptwriting.
Rebekah Hemmens
Rebekah studied a BA in English Literature and Media at NTU and continued with an MA. She writes short stories and poems as well as tips on writing on her blog, ThePolkaDotDaffodil and even performed in London one of her works for SLAMinutes. She look to run a small press publishers as well as self publish and query her work. She is also looking at running creative writing workshops of her own and hosted her first with Drive LTD in April.
Website: http://thepolkadotdaffodil.co.uk
Charlie Y.
By combining the powers of complete dorkiness and a passion for books, Charlie is a writer and editor with an eye for fantasy fiction. After graduating First Class in her BA (Hons) in Professional and Creative Writing, she now pursues an MA in Creative Writing in Nottingham.
Published examples of her work can be found in the short story anthologies: Precious (2019), and Survival (2021) by Hammond House Publishing.
Henry G Lewis
Henry G Lewis is an eclectic writer from Leicestershire. Their favourite forms are flash fiction, screen writing and poetry. Not wanting to limit themselves to any one style they attempt to become a jack of all trades rather than master of one.
Jordan Baines
Jordan Baines is a Midlands based writer of prose, short stories, and screenplays with several of her works including themes in dystopian and science fiction. Graduating with a Hons degree in English Literature in 2021, she now studies the Creative Writing MA at NTU where she is a content writer and script editor for the course’s anthology Almost Home.
Sophie Marsh.
Sophie is part of the proofing and social media team, focusing on promoting the anthology alongside proofing each piece. She is part of the NTU alumni, having graduated with a BA (Hons) in English. Sophie is an aspiring writer, choosing to continue at NTU on the MA course for Creative Writing, specialising in Fantasy fiction
Yvonne Radley
Yvonne has been a journalist and blogger for more than 30 years. She enrolled onto the MA in Creative Writing at NTU in her 50’s, because she wanted to publish her debut novel. Lots changed, she used her media skills to promote the Anthology, fell in love with scriptwriting, and also became a part-time English Tutor working with disadvantaged children in secondary schools.
Ethan Wiltshire
Ethan makes comics. He’s been writing and drawing them for 15 years (to varying degrees of success). They often contend with themes of guilt, doubt, despair, and alienation. They aren’t always needlessly bleak though. Sometimes he’ll just do something fun about, like, a knight or something.
Kathryn Morson
Kathryn is part of the editorial team, focusing on proofreading and ordering. She is part of the NTU alumni, recently graduating with a first-class honours degree in English, alongside the PN Review Prize for creative writing. Kathryn chose to study MA Creative Writing to further her skills, and experiment with different forms and genres. She currently works in the library sector.
Teresa Forrest.
Teresa is originally from Northern Ireland and has a BSSc in Sociology from Queen’s University, Belfast. Her poetry has been published in a number of magazines, including Iota, Dream Catcher, The Interpreter’s House, The Cannon’s Mouth and South. She hopes to explore different writing genres during her MA in Creative Writing. She is Secretary of Nottingham Poetry Society.
Graziana Broady
Poet, writer, and aspiring author of literary non-fiction, Bryna is a poetry contributor to MA Creative Writing’s 2022, student-produced Anthology, Almost Home.
Bryna previously studied BSc (Hons) Biomedical Sciences at Nottingham Trent University while teaching maths to students aged five to eighteen years old. She enrolled in MA in Creative Writing to explore her craft, develop her skills in scriptwriting and branch out into the world of filmmaking.
Grace Carter
Grace enjoys storytelling because it makes people feels things, and that’s really really important. A lot of what Grace writes is for theatre, an art that has taught her lots. The rest is just whatever comes out of her brain. What is consistent about her writing is comedy. Grace thinks that there’s always a place for it, and that you can always laugh your way out of a situation.
D. C. Emery
Daniel Emery is one of the anthology’s fiction writers. Daniel Graduated from LLB Law in 2021 from Nottingham Trent University before deciding to transition subjects and pursue his aspirations of becoming a novelist and screenwriter. Currently a Teaching Assistant in the Nottingham area, he enlisted on the MA Creative Writing 2022 to improve his craft and take his first step into the writing world.
Charlotte McLean
Charlotte has worked in copywriting and children’s social care before focusing on her love of writing stories and poems. She enjoys writing to seek insight to societal and personal issues, drawing on real life situations. She endeavours to do this in a humorous and relatable way for young people, and she especially enjoys writing realistic fiction for children and young adults.
Contributors.
These are the second year MA students who have also contributed with their writing to the Almost Home anthology.
Abigail S. Cobley has a passion for writing middle-grade fiction and an interest in history. She hopes to become a published author. After teaching in primary schools, she repaired books for the British Library and British Museum. Today she works for Manuscripts and Special Collections at the University of Nottingham, where she hunts dark secrets amongst the millions of manuscripts and parchments.
Twitter: @AbigailSCobley
Alison Goodchild is currently working on a collection of strange short stories exploring the uncanny. She was a contributor to the 20/21 NTU MA Creative Writing anthology Uncertain Truths and was also one of the project managers. She has previously worked in arts management and now spends her time writing and working in a school library where she also runs a young writers group.
Lee Skinner previously managed his own animation studio, writing and directing films for TV and clients. He later moved into multiplatform production, using interactive technology to explore new forms of storytelling. Lee has now started a Creative Writing PhD to investigate how creative writing can support victims of abuse, and how those experiences can inform fiction writing with supportive solutions.
Instagram: @leeskinneruk
https://www.instagram.com/leeskinneruk/
Guest Authors
Here are some of the guest authors in our anthology.
Andrew Taylor
Andrew Taylor is senior lecturer in creative writing at NTU and course leader for the BA in Creative Writing. His third collection of poetry was published by Shearsman Books in 2021. He has edited the Collected Poems of Peter Finch (Seren Books, 2022) and is currently working with Branwell Bronte’s poems.
Twitter: @dradny
A M Dassu
A. M. DASSU is the internationally acclaimed author of Boy, Everywhere, which has been listed for 25 awards, including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Carnegie Medal, is the 2021 winner of The Little Rebels Award for Radical Fiction and is also an American Library Association Notable Book. She writes books that challenge stereotypes, are full of empathy, hope and heart.
Twitter: @a_reflective
Instagram: @a.m.dassu
Almost Home Anthology 