Val Portelli

Despite receiving her first rejection letter aged nine, from some lovely people at a well-known Women’s magazine, Val continued writing intermittently until a freak accident left her housebound and going stir crazy.

To save her sanity, she completed her first full length novel, which was taken up by a publisher and quickly followed by a second traditionally published book, before she decided self-publishing was the way to go.

Over time she realised her pen name ‘Voinks,’ although unique, was not memorable, and later books were published under her own name. She writes in various genres, although her short stories normally include her trademark twist of ‘Quirky,’ which she used when setting up her own publishing company.

Several years have passed since that initial plunge into being ‘authorish,’ and she learns something new every day. Writing a weekly story for her Facebook author page, a Sunday blog post, beta reading for author friends, and keeping up with book bloggers has become a full-time job. In her spare time, she writes more books and takes care of her family of unicorns.