Writing den is a motivating factor for Banbury author

AP Bazeley’s Tilly Meets Her Match, was published in January and tells the tales of Tilly and her two friends. Mrs Bazeley’s desire to pen a book has been with her since an early age.

Mrs Bazeley said: “When I was seven I won a handwriting competition in Scotland and I kind of liked seeing my work displayed and I thought one of these days I am going to write a book and hold it in my hand with my name on it. I have one now.”

The author spent her career working with children, as a teacher and an accredited child minder and has written two, as yet unpublished, books on autism. The drive and opportunity to write came, however, after her retirement.

Mrs Bazeley said: “My husband promised me that when I retired he would build me somewhere to write as he had taken over the office. So he built me the shack in the garden. He and my son put it up and it’s lovely.”

The driving force behind Tilly’s conclusion came when her god-daughter came to stay and the book only took the author six weeks to write.

Mr Bazeley said: “It took longer to get published, that bit of it, the editing and creating something that would suit a global market, was far harder than I realised. The actual writing of the story took about six weeks.”

Response to the book has been positive with Tilly selling copies as far a field as Japan and South Korea and a sequel to Tilly will be published this year.

The author will also be appearing at the Middleton Cheney’s Butlers Pantry on March 4 from 11am and again at Banbury Library on March 5 from 5.15pm.