How I Started Writing \| Author post by Dawn Barker

I’ve always loved reading. As a child I was very bookish, and a highlight of my week was the weekly trip to the local library with my grandma. I loved English at school, and still remember the awe of studying the war poets like Wilfred Owen, and the novels of Lewis Grassic Gibbon. I considered studying Literature at university, but always loved science too, and in the end, decided to study Medicine at Aberdeen University. I continued to read voraciously though and always held my dream of being a writer.

I started writing some non-fiction when I was working as a junior doctor, but I didn’t start writing fiction until my first child was three months old – almost eight years ago now! That was when I began writing my first novel, Fractured. I had wanted to write a novel – that novel – for years, but always found excuses not to. When I found myself at home with a young baby, I decided it was the time to give myself the intellectual stimulation and challenge. When my daughter napped, I would hurry to my computer to write my daily 500 words. It was a great way to switch off from being a new mum.

When I had finished the second draft of Fractured, I entered it into the Hachette/Queensland Writers Centre Manuscript Development Programme and was lucky enough to be one of seven writers chosen to participate. From there, I managed to get an agent, and my first publishing contract!

While I was waiting for Fractured to be published, I began writing the first draft of Let Her Go. I was pregnant again while writing it and had a sense of urgency that if I didn’t finish a first draft before my new baby came along, I would struggle to find the time. Somehow, I managed to finish that and it was first published in Australia a couple of years ago, then in Turkey and Poland. I’m thrilled that it now has a home in the UK.

I’m currently working on my third novel, which will be published in 2018.

Dawn’s latest novel Let Her Go is out now in ebook format.