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.