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Root: New Stories from North East Writers
Root is a collection of short stories which re-affirm the North-East’s status as a vibrant area for new writing.
The subjects of the 13 stories on show here range from the domestic – family relationships, gardening, bullying, adoption and loss – to the plain bizarre: a circus bearded lady, a woman who morphs into Elvis, and an insight into what God wears to work.
The writers featured in Root include Avril Joy, Fiona Cooper, Amanda Baker and Rob Walton.
The subjects of the 13 stories on show here range from the domestic – family relationships, gardening, bullying, adoption and loss – to the plain bizarre: a circus bearded lady, a woman who morphs into Elvis, and an insight into what God wears to work.
The writers featured in Root include Avril Joy, Fiona Cooper, Amanda Baker and Rob Walton.
144 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 14, 2013
2 people want to read
About the author
Avril Joy
20 books22 followersI was born and brought up on the Somerset Levels, the setting for my first novel, The Sweet Track, published in 2007 by Flambard Press.
I left Somerset at eighteen for U.E.A, and a degree in the History of Art, then lived in London where I taught for a couple of years before moving north.
After the move north I travelled in India, Kashmir and Nepal for a while and when I came back I started work as a temporary teacher in a women’s prison HMP Low Newton, on the outskirts of Durham city. I met Writer-in-Residence Wendy Robertson here and that’s when I began writing. Until then I had no thoughts of ever being a writer.
In 2003 I won a Northern Promise Award, from New Writing North.
When the children were up and leaving home, I finally left my job in order to write. I was by this time a Prison Governor with responsibity for learning and skills development. I hadn’t meant to stay at Low Newton for so long but almost from the start I became deeply involved with the women and their lives – read more here and in many ways that never leaves me. I see it creep in again and again, often through the back door, into what I write.
In 2012 I won the inaugural Costa Short Story Award for my story Millie and Bird.
My latest novel, Sometimes a River Song, was awarded The People's Book Prize 2017 best Achievement Award
I left Somerset at eighteen for U.E.A, and a degree in the History of Art, then lived in London where I taught for a couple of years before moving north.
After the move north I travelled in India, Kashmir and Nepal for a while and when I came back I started work as a temporary teacher in a women’s prison HMP Low Newton, on the outskirts of Durham city. I met Writer-in-Residence Wendy Robertson here and that’s when I began writing. Until then I had no thoughts of ever being a writer.
In 2003 I won a Northern Promise Award, from New Writing North.
When the children were up and leaving home, I finally left my job in order to write. I was by this time a Prison Governor with responsibity for learning and skills development. I hadn’t meant to stay at Low Newton for so long but almost from the start I became deeply involved with the women and their lives – read more here and in many ways that never leaves me. I see it creep in again and again, often through the back door, into what I write.
In 2012 I won the inaugural Costa Short Story Award for my story Millie and Bird.
My latest novel, Sometimes a River Song, was awarded The People's Book Prize 2017 best Achievement Award
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