About
Gemma is a writer of young adult historical fiction set mostly in 18th-century England. Her unpublished novel The Trade in Salt was longlisted for the 2016 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. She has noticed that her stories often feature rioting (early modern Brits' favourite pastime). Gemma has published short fiction and poetry in small press magazines, including Other Poetry, Poetry Nottingham International, Staple, The Fenland Reed, and Vintage Script. She is currently seeking agent representation (if you're a fit, please get in touch).
By day, Gemma writes technical documentation, and has explained pretty much anything you can do in a software user interface besides crashing it. She has an undergraduate degree in history, and graduate degrees in history and English. Her hobbies include reading, cinema, flea marketing, video adventure games, and gardening.
Longer Version
Gemma was born and raised in the West Midlands, UK. She studied history at Pembroke College, Cambridge, gaining an M.A. and an M.Phil. After a period of working, she returned to Cambridge to complete a Ph.D. in literature. Her thesis was on the historiography of the Imagist poetry movement and the critics who tried to claim and to define it at various times. She has also written conference papers and a journal article related to the Imagist movement.
Gemma's IT career began with creating hobby websites. Back in the web's Jurassic era, she won a copy of Microsoft FrontPage in an AOL competition, and was so excited by this that she decided to pursue new media as a profession. She has worked for many years as a technical writer documenting knowledge management software, creating content ranging from full-length user manuals to snippets of microcopy. She is interested in how technical writers can improve the usability of software and act as advocates for the user. Gemma has also worked as a web directory editor, a shop assistant, and a data wrangler for an automotive company.
Home is a Victorian terrace in the cathedral city of Ely. Its decor is eclectic, which is the cool way of saying nothing matches. Much of the house is filled with books. Gemma has a whole case of books by or about Richard Aldington, one of the Imagists, and mini collections of vintage Puffins, Peacocks (Puffins with a YA rating), medieval literature, and Arthuriana. (You can browse her book collection on LibraryThing.) She also collects vintage coloured glass sugar shakers, because they look sculptural and don't easily break.
When parked on her sofa, Gemma watches a lot of films and TV box sets. Long-time favourites include Cinema Paradiso, Jesus of Montréal, The Princess Bride, Parting Glances, Godzilla, and the original Stars Wars trilogy. An unabashed analogue native, she is one of the few people she knows who owns a VCR.
