About

As well as being in love with words, I’m a proud Boltonian working class mum, granny, sister, wife and daughter, friend, pet enabler and student of the tricky business of being as decent a human being as it’s possible for me to be. I now live below sea level in the sunken washes that are the Cambridgeshire fens, worrying about climate change and the cost of living crisis. I started studying creative writing at the Open University when I was 50, in 2015. I did their wonderful undergrad module A215 then, the following year started their MA in Creative Writing which I passed with  distinction, graduating at the Barbican on March 23rd 2019.  

It’s now June 2025 and I’m about to have my third book published. My debut memoir-in-flash The Naming of Bones was published 22/4/2021 by Retreat West Books, and my Bath novella-in-flash prize winning and Rubery prize shortlisted story, A Learning Curve, which was published in July 2023 by Ad Hoc Fiction. Details of how to buy signed copes of both, direct from me, are on the Books for Sale page on this site. My third book, a collection of unsettling short stories and flash fictions, entitled Hostile Environments will be published by Northodox Press who you can read more about by following this link https://www.northodox.co.uk/.  

During my years writing, I’ve won several short story and flash fiction comps including: Flash 500, The Segora short story comp, Molotov Cocktail, Retreat West, Horror Scribes, South Warwickshire Lit Fest CNF Prize and the National Flash Fiction Day Micro Comp. I’ve also been awarded prizes in places like Ellipses Zine flash collection prize, Fountain mag creative non-fiction prize, the Bath Flash Competition and been widely published in places like the Fish Anthology, Aesthetica, the Dinesh Allirajah Short Story Anthology (managed by Comma Press), and The Curae Short Story Anthology. My fave online e-zines in which I’ve had stories published include FlashBack Fiction, Flash Flood and Fictive Dream. Between 2016-2023 I was nominated each year for Best on the net/Pushcarts, and one of my flash fictions was included in the BIFFY 50 (Best British and Irish Flash Fictions).

In 2025 I’ve been mostly writing a novel and a flash chap book inspired by the worry and horror evoked by recent global events. My novel in progress has been shortlisted for Retreat West’s opening chapter comp and shortlisted for the First Pages Prize too so that’s good. Here’s a link to more details about my novel and a snippet from its opening, just follow the link and scroll down the page. https://www.firstpagesprize.com/fiction-shortlist 

 Thanks for visiting my teeny blogspace. All the stories and poems posted here are written by me and therefore my copywrite. If you would like to reproduce anything just ask. My e-mail is jankaneen@aol.com

Thanks