Sue Reed
Born in West Sussex but migrated north and wore many hats...
Born down south, but migrated north, having worn many hats.
I was born in the early sixties in Worthing, West Sussex, with a childhood spent on pebble beaches, roaming the South Downs, camping and playing in my Nan and Grandad’s garden.
My favourite subjects at school were English Literature and Modern Foreign Languages. I had a dream that one day, I would ‘be a writer’, but I also wanted to travel. I was all set to study French and German at university when fate took a hand. Never a fan of PE, my sixth form college teachers suggested that Wednesday afternoons be spent at a local special school to make better use of my time. I loved the work and decided to train as a teacher of pupils with learning difficulties.
The Early Years...
Whilst at college, I had a best friend, Jane, with whom I shared a flat and many adventures. Jane has now sadly passed away due to breast cancer, but her memory lives on, and I have named my protagonist in both the Rewilding of Molly McFlynn and Molly McFlynn Goes Rogue after Jane’s daughter, Molly.
It was in my final year at teacher training college that I met my future husband, Tim. He had come down from Liverpool to visit his sister, but ended up stopping with me! When my course finished in 1984, I moved up to Toxteth in Liverpool to live with him. I got my first teaching job in Liverpool. At the same time, we started a small business making batik clothes and were about to get a grant from The Prince’s Trust when Tim got an offer of an accountancy training package with ICI on Teesside. We bought our first house in Norton on the outskirts of Stockton-on-Tees, and I got a job at the special school in Easington Colliery, the year after the miners’ strike.
We lived in Stockton-on-Tees for two years, growing vegetables on our allotment at weekends. One day, we found our precious crops had all been slashed to the ground and decided to move to the countryside. After two years of searching, we found two derelict lead miners’ cottages, high in the North Pennines in Weardale. We spent the next year living in a caravan, renovating the houses, learning plumbing and wiring from the library. With a ‘sod the jobs’ mentality, we gave up our respectable teaching and accountancy positions and got jobs as Information Assistants at Killhope Lead Mining Centre. We both worked part-time and shared bringing up our three children.
lifelong ambition...
I returned to supply teaching at the turn of the millennium, and then got a permanent position at Hexham Priory School, where I worked for twelve years. I specialised in working with pupils who had profound learning disabilities, writing curricula and sensory dramas. It was this work, bringing the world alive through sensory learning, to pupils whose means of exploration were limited, that helped me to develop what some have said to be a unique narrative voice and the ability to write with a deep sense of place.
Although I loved my work, what I now know to be ADHD burnout at the time of the perimenopause, ill health forced me to leave teaching. Never one to sit idle, I began to blog about growing food and sustainable living, as the Bridge Cottage Way. It was through this that the idea for The Woolly Pedlar came, and in 2012, I registered as self-employed and ran my own, successful business upcycling waste wool knitwear into clothing and soft furnishings.
In 2019, at the age of 58, I decided to realise a lifelong ambition and went to Newcastle University to do a Creative Writing MA. It was during the module, Writing for Children and Young Adults, led by author Ann Coburn, that the ideas for the Molly McFlynn series were born.
I write regular articles of creative non-fiction from the front lines of midlife, leaving shame in the dust, over at RIPE, my Substack publication. Themes include: post-trauma badassery, neurospicy chaos, gardening as witchcraft, solo travel and van life joyrides.
I also write freelance for magazines and publications, with regular features on travel and life beyond the menopause gateway. I am a regular contributor to Platinum Magazine.
Future writing plans include a third adventure for Molly, and an adult novel about a 50-year-old woman who walks away from everything and goes looking for love in all the wrong places.
I love my work as a writer and am so grateful for all the support from my community of followers, readers and fellow writers. Finding my voice in my sixties has been life-changing, and I hope to have many more years of writing to come.
School visits and Author Talks.
School Visits
With many years’ teaching under her belt, Sue likens going into schools like ‘coming home’ and enjoys talking to pupils about her work and writing journey as well as discussing themes from her debut novel, The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn. Talks can be in large or small groups.
Themes include:
The Newcastle Witch Trials of 1649 and reframing the narrative of the witch.
Standing out form the crowd – It’s okay to be different.
‘Othering’ in relation to women and girls both historically and now
Food, diets and body image.
Seasonal eating and sustainable living
In addition to general chat, Sue is also available to teach creative writing to smaller groups using a range of exciting exercises which can be tailored to suit needs.
Please get in touch to discuss a visit.
Book Signings and Author Talks.
Sue is available for book signings and author talks. With a career in teaching, then running her own business as the Woolly Pedlar, upcycling knitwear into funky clothing, then going to university as a mature student to do her MA in Creative Writing, and then getting a publishing deal in her sixties, Sue has plenty to talk about in relation to her journey to become a published writer.
Talks can be tailored to suit the needs of the group or can take a more general nature, discussing themes from her work, which are inspired by feminist issues, and living a gentle life, as sustainably as possible in rural Northumberland.
Creative writing workshops can also be arranged with topics such as noticing and using the senses to bring the world alive, free writing and the importance of journalling.
With a campervan at her disposal, Sue is happy to travel, so do get in touch if you would like her to come to your local group or bookshop. Tours are welcome!