JENNY QUINTANA
The debut author tells Dolores Gordon Smith how she made the transition from writing education books to fiction
How I got published
‘When I was twelve, inspired by my favourite author, Agatha Christie, I wrote a crime novel.
It was called The Imposter. This was my future.
I was going to be a writer.
‘Life continued but my dream of being a writer remained just that – a dream. There was a lot of yearning but no self-belief. I had nothing to say. Who would want to read my stories? My lack of confidence was joined by the pressures of life – teaching, earning money, being a mother.
‘In my early thirties, I shifted my work focus from teaching to writing education books. I was freelance and I took the opportunity to spend time doing a writing course. I wrote short stories and won a few prizes, but what I really wanted to do was write a novel. I wrote 30,000 words, got stuck, gave up, started again, but eventually, I finished it.