I am Carole L Pollard and I write.  I usually read the last page of a book first so I can relax and enjoy the journey. Controversial I know but there it is.

I have recently published my first novel - Peggy  about a woman in her late fifties who is the survivor of a difficult relationship (no spoilers here) - You'll find more details on the Writing News page.

Writing has always been important to me, and I have been reading for as long as I can remember.  I could read and write before I started school, thanks to some 1-1 time with my grandmother who came from a family of teachers.  From an early age I was reading Brer Rabbit and The Naughtiest Girl in the School, Mallory Towers and some strange religious book full of tales with a moral message.  I made up my own stories and wrote them down, illustrating them as I went along.

At Junior School we were read to - The Count of Monte Cristo, or Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories - they seem quite adult titles for nine and ten year olds, but they instilled in me a love of language and I have carried on reading and writing because of them.

The only subject I had any time for at secondary school was English, but when Mrs Meldrum was replaced by an unlikeable person who I shall not name, my interest wained and it wasn't until much later, after a life of dull admin jobs, that I felt determined to pick up my studies of English again.   Thanks to The Open University, I graduated with a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing in 2017, and graduated with an MA in Creative Writing in 2019.  I would love to show the unlikeable person my certificates, but I can live with her not knowing.

I have always believed in the therapeutic qualities of writing - whether it's ranting on about the speed people drive around Milton Keynes and sending it to the local newspaper, or giving someone who has upset me a piece of my mind (and then shredding it rather than sending it on), making up stories with a twist, or writing about my own or someone else's life.  Writing is the one thing I do that when I'm doing it, I don't keep thinking I should be doing something else.

I recently witnessed someone coming to a major decision about her life after she took part in one of my Freewriting Workshops - she had cleared so much space in her mind by spilling everything onto paper, that when she got home, a solution suddenly presented itself to her.  I want to encourage people to do this - there are so many wide-reaching benefits in every area of life.  Just by going through a few simple exercises, it's possible to find new ways of expression - to dig deeper into our rich language, and improve our communication skills - it's relaxing too!