Our Writers
DAVID ALGAR
David Algar could best be described as a ‘middle class itinerant’, always moving from school to school and place to place. His first degree, from Aberystwyth University, was in Economics and International Relations; forty years later, he completed a second degree in Psychology and Politics. The wandering life included a long career in industry, regularly changing jobs in the nick of time to avoid being found out. Along the way, he has managed to pick up a wife, two kids and five chickens, three bikes and a kayak, all to be found in a small village in South Buckinghamshire.


Writing came late in life, fuelled by the curiosity brought on by being continually on the move: a curiosity for how we live through the chaos in the world, how we use our humanity for good and how we can all – especially men – be immensely silly. When he’s not writing, or gazing into the middle distance, David is happiest travelling, playing sport or just being badly behaved.
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HEIDI EDMUNDSON
Heidi Edmundson was born by the sea and grew up with the legends of Northern Ireland’s spectacular Causeway Coast. As a child, she was fascinated by myths and fairy tales, and was an avid reader of mystery stories. Her love of crime fiction developed in adolescence when she discovered Agatha Christie.
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She studied medicine at Dundee University and currently lives in North London where she has been a consultant in Emergency Medicine for over ten years. She is a passionate advocate for staff wellbeing and building positive workplace cultures. During the pandemic she experienced first-hand the importance of having a daily creative practice to manage stress and anxiety. She originally planned just to write a short story but surprised herself by discovering that she had a lot more to say and she enjoyed creating a crime to solve as much as reading about one. Her second book is a memoir of a personal health crisis, set against the NHS in chaos.
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LAURA R GRAY
Born and raised in Scotland, Laura Gray studied English Literature at Somerville College, University of Oxford. The day after her last exam, she had her wisdom teeth removed, sold her belongings and moved to Italy. Her intention was to conclude the previous year’s summer romance before returning to real life. Instead, she married him and they now have three children. She has lived there ever since.
She had the good fortune to find herself in Montalcino, a beautiful hilltop town in the heart of Tuscany, where the prestigious wine Brunello di Montalcino DOCG is produced. The leap from books into wine was inevitable. Laura qualified as a sommelier in 2004, and was the CEO and manager of a small winery for twenty years. Since 2022, she has worked freelance as a winery whisperer as well as running bespoke art history tours.
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MARTIN GRAY
Martin Gray taught for twenty-four years at the University of Stirling. Extended visits to Cameroon and Australia provided new insights and interests.

He has two Scottish children. Every summer, the family threw everything into the back of an elderly Fiat and drove to Italy, to stay in Camigliano, a tiny village in mountainous southern Tuscany. Two books were the fruit of these peaceful retreats: The Penguin Book of the Bicycle (with R Watson) and A Dictionary of Literary Terms.

Nearly twenty-five years ago, he started a travel company. Small in scale, but modestly large in ambition, Learn Italy takes groups to enjoy that country’s culture, history and bustling present-day reality.
PATRICK KEALEY
Patrick knew he wanted to be a storyteller from the age of six, when he discovered that a rich interior life was a lot more fun than everyday life.

He has worked as an actor and theatre director, producer, drama lecturer, workshop leader and playwright. His theatre work has taken him to America, France, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and Colombia, as well as theatres and festivals throughout the UK and Ireland. He performs two solo shows, including the award-winning adaptation of The Life and Times of Archy and Mehitabel.

Patrick also worked as a tour guide all around Ireland for over twenty years and, somewhere along those winding Irish roads, Bogboy was born. This is a true story in everything but the detail.
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GRAHAM STRUGNELL
Graham Strugnell was born in Wallington, Surrey, in 1961. In a life filled with adventure and mishap, he failed his 11+, faked his way into grammar school and blundered through his teenage years. After a bureaucratic oversight, he found himself at Oxford University in the 1980s. He then turned his hand to journalism, working briefly for a free newspaper and as a freelancer, where his stories of life as a hapless bachelor met with some acclaim. Later, he lived and taught for many years in Japan.

On his return to the UK, he became a teacher, journalist, musician and playwright, mainly of school plays that baffled audiences with their scale and ambition. He now lives with his wife and son in deepest Devon where he teaches on zoom. As he seldom meets people who do not appear in pixelated form on his computer screen, his greatest ambition is to turn himself into a meme.
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SUE TURBETT
Sue Turbett worked in BBC TV News and Current Affairs as a Director and Producer for many years before leaving to set up her own video production business. She now brings her passion for travel, and empowering stories, to life in her debut novel Eagle Sister. Inspired by real-world events and the extraordinary women she has met, Sue’s story-telling centres on themes of self-discovery, resilience, family and loyalty, celebrating the strength of women. She is drawn to narratives where female protagonists grapple with their predetermined paths, overcome adversity, and find strength in unexpected places.
Sue lives in Buckinghamshire, and is now working on her second novel, in between hill walking, running, volunteering, cold water swimming and ag foghlaim Gaeilge.
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