Where do I start? I guess my story starts, as it always has done, back in a little town called Braintree in Essex, a place I'm fiercely proud of coming from. I spent 19 years of my life here dreaming of becoming and doing something bigger than everyone else around me was intent on doing/aspiring to do. And I'm still dreaming, if anything harder than I dreamed 3 years ago.

I guess me and writing first became bedfellows when I was just 8 years old. I'd had a pretty rough ride at primary school up until this point until I had a fantastic teacher, Nathan Lowe, who encouraged my passion for and love of books and writing so much. And it was from there that I really started, writing a small series of books about a witch that was inspired by (READ: completely ripping off) 'The Worst Witch' by Jill Murphy.

Then a few years later, when I started secondary school and I was being bullied mercilessly for reading Smash Hits, busting out *NSYNC dance routines at school discos and listening to S Club 7/All Saints, I began writing some poems that sounded like song lyrics. These weren't very good either. 

But then a few years later, when I'd stepped out of my shell in sixth form and became my own person, my English Literature teachers at the time told me about a scriptwriting contest being held by a college in North London. I entered it with a strange little script about an ordinary geez who gets on a bus and observes all these weird characters around him. I didn't win it. Nor did I win the annual Bridport prize that I entered a year later, but it was this that gave me the hunger, the desire to learn how to become a writer.

After getting turned down by UEA, I reapplied to do BA (Hons) English Literature with Creative Writing and English Language Teaching at University of Hertfordshire. Three years on and I've now graduated with a 2:1 and I'm ready to make my first steps into a career in writing. 'Victory after victory, triumph after triumph'.