Helen Haraldsen

I live in West Cumbria on the edge of the Lake District National Park. My passions in life have always been reading, writing and riding. I have been a horse owner since 10 years old and as a young girl, equestrian fiction was all I wanted to read. I was constantly dragging my parents into bookshops to look for books featuring ponies. As well as riding and reading about ponies, I also loved writing about and drawing them too.

My career has been one of teaching. I started off in the primary sector, teaching years 5 and 6. I then moved into secondary teaching and currently combine teaching English with running the library at my school. This is a unique position to be in as I devote a lot of my time to reading fiction for children and teenagers so that I can help students to find great books. I aim to inspire a love of reading and writing for pleasure in the students. I constantly promote books in my lessons using my knowledge of a wide range of authors and novels. I run the school’s reading club and I also set up a Writers & Illustrators Club.

Little Pearl is my first novel and was written about my real-life first pony. It is the first in a series which will cover some of the other pony personalities I've known while growing up.