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Clare was born in Truro, Cornwall but when she was three years old, moved to live near Guildford in Surrey. It was at her Junior school here that she remembers first loving to write and still recalls reading out her story ‘The Snail and the Caterpillar’ to the class and making everyone laugh. She wrote the most poems in the school poetry book and even got her Brownie Writer’s Badge! She then moved to Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire and attended a girls’ grammar school where sadly creative writing was not encouraged.
On leaving school, Clare trained as a speech and language therapist and worked in this profession for a few years before becoming a freelance writer, contributing to a wide variety of magazines. Producing two daughters led her to write for ‘Parents’ and ‘Practical Parenting’ magazines and to write four books for parents including Your Confident Child and Prepare Your Child for School. She returned to Speech and Language Therapy for a while before the call of the pen led her to join a writers’ class at Essex University. She dabbled in play writing as a result and had a short play performed in York. The Mother and Daughter Diaries is her first novel, published by Mira.
Several of her poems and stories have been highly commended in national competitions.
Clare now lives in Essex with John, who makes the tea and watches all her plays. She has two daughters – Emma works in mental health and Jessica is at drama school.
Clare is currently working on her second novel and continuing to write plays, following on from her recent successes. She now tries to include a part in every play for Jessica, and Emma is on hand with her expert take on all things psychological.
Her plays have been performed at York University, Barnes Arts Centre, ADC theatre Cambridge, The Rosemary Branch, The Chicken and Hens, and Proud Cabaret Club. And there have been rehearsed readings at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, the ADC theatre and as part of the Pulse festival at Ipswich.
Performances are planned for the Soho theatre, the Edinburgh festival and for a National tour – so watch this space!
Click on My Journal for up to date progress.
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