Lynn Michell

My seventeen books cross-cross genres, a publisher’s nightmare. They include a writing scheme for primary schools, Write From the Start (Longman) a book recording the experiences of thirty people with severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Shattered:Life with ME (HarperCollins), and the authorised biography of the surrealist painter, Rosa Branson (Linen Press). Two books are close to my heart: White Lies, my debut novel, was runner-up in the Robert Louis Stevenson Award. Spanning four generations and set against the backcloth of the 1950s Mao Mao uprising in Kenya, it tells the story of an adulterous love affair between a soldier’s wife and an intelligence officer who understands Africa. The Red Beach Hut is about a fine but fated friendship between two outsiders, a gay man and a misfit boy, who meet on a windswept English beach. Society’s warped gaze endangers both of them.

I have recently moved, after twelve years in southern France, to a remote croft in the Western Isles. I live in a caravan with views of sea and islands, and look after brown and black sheep.

Lynn’s books

Fiction

1993 Letters To My Semi-Detached Son: A Mother’s Story. The Women’s Press.

2011 White Lies. Linen Press.

2015 Run Alice, Run. Linen Press.

2017 The Red Beach Hut. Linen Press.

Memoir and Biography

2013 Shooting Stars Are The Flying Fish Of The Night. Lynn Michell & Stefan Gregory. Linen Press

‘We crossed the Atlantic in a blue boat called Scarlet.’

2021 Rosa Branson: A Portrait. Linen press

Non-Fiction

1987-1991 Write From The Start. Oliver & Boyd. Six illustrated pupils’ books and two teachers’ books to help children become competent writers. The books break away from traditional, narrow teaching methods and redefine writing as everything from a list to a letter to a project. The purpose is to make writing a varied challenge – and fun.

1990 Growing Up in Smoke. Pluto Press. A first account of children as passive smokers.

2003 Shattered: Life With ME. HarperCollins.

Anthologies

1997 A Stranger At My Table: Mothering Adolescents. (Ed) The Women’s Press.

2005 Wild On Her Blue Days. (Ed). AmberSand Press. An anthology of new writing.