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Clare was born in Truro, Cornwall in 1957 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.
Clare now lives in Colchester, Essex with her husband and two daughters and is currently awaiting a performance of her play – The Glenn Miller Neurosis Programme – and is working on her second novel – Cloudbusting Day.
- Born in Truro, Cornwall 1957
- Talking and Your Child published 1993
- Prepare Your Child for School published 1994
- The 5 Minute Mum published 1995
- Help Your Child Be Confident published 1996
- Hothouse performed by the Real People Theatre Company 2006
- The Mother and Daughter Diaries published 2008
Sixteen-year-old Jo makes lists to manage her world, but somehow she still feels out of control. But she has found one way to cope: watching what she eats – or rather, what she doesn’t eat. And she is losing weight…. but not quickly enough
Lizzie, Jo’s mum, doesn’t make lists.
She’s too busy being a single mum, hating her ex-husbands new wife and trying to keep an eye on Jo – who seems to have stopped communicating with her altogether.
When Jo is diagnosed with anorexia, Lizzie is desperate with worry and their lives spin out of control. Jo needs help and she knows it.
Beneath Jo and Lizzie’s Fears and frustrations is a funny, warm and insightful story about a mother and daughter who go on a journey to find themselves- and each other.