Stephanie Dagg

I’m Stephanie Dagg, married to Chris for nearly 25 years and mum to Benj (19), Caiti (17) and Ruadhri (9). We live on a 75 acre farm in rural Creuse with llamas, alpacas and three lakes full of carp. We run a fishery and gite, and also a llama trekking business. We moved here in 2006 from Ireland, where we’d lived for 15 years. Before that we lived in England. You can follow our French adventures at http://www.bloginfrance.com.

I’m an English graduate (Somerville College, Oxford) and Publishing Studies postgraduate (Stirling). I began a career in publishing in 1985 as a desk editor with Hodder and Stoughton, then I deviated from the path to become a sales rep for a couple of years for some academic presses and then an accountant. This is what meeting and marrying a guy who has a job in Newcastle does for you! Anyway, in 1992 I got back on track by becoming a freelance editor and indexer, working from home part-time around the kids. The same year we moved to Ireland.

I began to write stories for Benj, and then Caiti, and I won second prize in a contest in a magazine with one of my tales. That prompted me to begin contacting publishers. I got plenty of rejections but finally hit the right place at the right time with Mentor Press and O’Brien Press in Ireland 1n 1998. For the next eight years I wrote prolifically and spent many happy hours visiting schools and libraries to do workshops with kids.

Then we moved to France and I stopped writing due to sheer exhaustion. Renovating a 200 year old farm that is falling apart takes a lot of effort. But I kept a blog and diaries and I’m using those experiences now in my book about moving to and living in France. I decided late last year (2010) to relaunch my writing career, this time in the adult market. I am writing a blog is about my journey to getting published again, with a look at other books about France, the Kindle and electronic publishing and where to find good advice on the Web.