S.L. Russell

I was born in 1951 and educated at Rochester Grammar School and Durham University, where I studied History. I've done a few things in my life: played the piano in a ballet school, worked in Woolworth's, scrubbed steps in hospitals, and taught English in Indonesia, among others. Before leaving to raise two daughters, now adult, for 12 years I taught children with special educational needs, and enjoyed it immensely. At around the same time I spent 17 years as a Samaritan volunteer, where I certainly received more than I gave. I learned a lot, not least how privileged my life was and is.

Even as a child I knew I wanted to write. At around 12 I had a clutch of rejection slips I was quite proud of in a perverse kind of way. But life tends to interrupt and all I ever did was sigh and complain until some friends challenged me to get on and write the novel - before my 50th birthday. The result was Leviathan with a Fish-hook (2009.) This became a trilogy and then to my great surprise other stories followed. The ninth was published in 2022; entitled The Wounds of Time it follows on from The Healing Knife (2020)) and The Thorn of Truth (2021). I couldn't avoid my Christian viewpoint even if I wanted to, but the stories are neither preachy nor pious but realistic, with characters that have patchwork histories, doubts, flaws and failures, rather than haloes - just like me, and probably you as well.

I live in Kent UK with my husband and Rosie the dog. My other love is music: I sing, play the flute and am a church organist.

I have a website www.slrussell.org and a blog www.suerussellsblog.blogspot.co.uk which you are very welcome to visit and do leave a comment if you wish.