Karen Smith

I was born and bred in Sheffield - a ‘true Yorkshire lass’, as they say, and raised amid shop-keeping and a tight-knit community by parents who were both articulate and creative. I can clearly remember a love of reading from an early age through to my teens, with a passion for poems and limericks, evident in a recent discovery of a piece I wrote about my father when I was only ten years old. In early adulthood, among my favourite authors were Fay Weldon and Martin Amis. The last book I read was Alice and the Fly by James Rice - a fabulous story and pure inspiration. My literary journey began in 2010 with my first novel, ‘An Ordinary Life’, published in 2014 by Mirador Books, under my own name, followed by The Healing by Karen E Stokes published in 2020 by Darkstroke. Writing is word therapy and delves deep into the mind, and although I discovered this later in life, the stories are fast-flowing and I am currently working on my third novel 'Blacksheep' with plans for a fourth.