Patricia Finney has been writing stories since she was seven and a published novelist since she was eighteen. Her first novel “A Shadow of Gulls” – telling the story of an Irish bard involved in the Irish equivalent of the Iliad – had already been published when she went up to Oxford to study History. While she was still in her first year, her book won the David Higham Award for Best First Novel of the year and some fantastic reviews. By then she was also a radio dramatist with the BBC Radio 3′s production of her play The Flood. The play was a bit obscure: it retold the story of the Flood from the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh – in blank verse.

Patricia’s second novel, The Crow Goddess, followed within a year to further acclaim, continuing the story of her Irish bard.

As well as another award-winning radio play (“A Room Full of Mirrors”), she has published fifteen other novels, including three Elizabethan spy thrillers and five Elizabethan crime novels, four childrens’ books set in Elizabethan times and the two earlier Jack books – hilarious stories about Jack the daffy (present-day) Labrador dog and his Pack, written in Doglish.

Her sixteenth book is the first useful poetry book in history – The Poetry Diet (or Why Don’t We All Just Wear Corsets?) about her disastrous relationship with chocolate – plus some really good chocolate recipes. You can buy The Poetry Diet direct from this website while stocks last.

Her day-job career to date has included stints as a newspaper columnist, medical magazine editor, property empress, hospital administrator, film scriptwriter and entrepreneur. She spent two and a half wonderful years in the south of Spain where she learnt Spanish, a little flamenco dancing and how to drink coffee and cognac at 8.00 in the morning.

Patricia would like you to know that coffee-cognac at 8 am is not always a good idea.

Since then she has been, among several other things, a coffee shop entrepreneur, a chairman of a local Chamber of Commerce and spent one delightful run-up to Christmas in her ideal day-job – selling books at Waterstones,Truro, where she learnt some remarkable things about book sales.

Throughout all this time people have come up to her and asked her if she’s still writing. To save time, she would like you all to know that if she’s still breathing and able to move, she’s still writing. Her most recent book in the Elizabethan crime series starring Sir Robert Carey (under the name of P F Chisholm) is due to come out soon – “An Air of Treason”.

She is now a publisher in her own right, in partnership with a man who must be known as The Publisher, and a director of Climbing Tree Books. Two of her non-fiction books have already come out as ebooks “Writeritis – the novel-writing bug” and “How to Beat Your Son at Computer Games” and there are three more ebooks on the way, including a third Jack book – “Jack and the Ghosts”!

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