About Rachel Anderson

In the beginning, I was a journalist and wrote some books for grownups. Eventually I graduated to writing for younger people. And this is what I've carried on doing for the past 30 years. Young readers are more attentive and much more critical. Stories last in a way that the journalism doesn't.

I often think I'd like to be writing soft stories about pink rabbits and puppies, but in fact veer towards fiction based around themes of political alienation, wars, asylum seekers, bereavement, abandonment.

My husband has been the same one since 1965. We have a modest selection of delicious grandchildren, seventeen nieces, and many other kind of rellies. We once had a cat but she died.

I used to claim that I could write anywhere, even in a public telephone box (a leftover from my reporting days) so I worked at the kitchen table surrounded by family life. Later I moved to a separate room. Now I have a well-heated, south-facing shed on the edge of a pine-tree plantation.

Curiously, my output remains the same as it always has been.

Rachel Anderson