Finding Inspiration September 2024

Anna Jefferson and Sam Johnson of Forthwrite host a panel discussion on the theme of creative writing and Finding Inspiration. With three brilliant authors, Disha Bose, Kate Sawyer and Pam Williams, sharing their experience, so have a watch to find your inspiration.
Disha Bose was born and raised in India. She worked in the tech industry for a few years before deciding to pursue her dream of writing a novel. She lives in Ireland now. Dirty Laundry her debut novel, was published in March 2023 and her second novel I Will Blossom Anyway is due May next year.
Kate Sawyer worked as an actor and theatre and events producer, before writing several short films and then turning her hand to fiction. Her debut novel, The Stranding, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, won the East Anglian fiction prize, was adapted for BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and is being developed for TV by Fremantle and Afua Hirsch's production company Born In Me. Her second novel This Family is a Waterstones Book Of The Month.
When Kate isn't writing, or talking to other authors about their writing practices for her podcast Novel Experience, she is busy producing the annual Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival.
After twenty years living in London, she recently returned to her native East Anglia, where she lives with her young daughter.
Pam Williams is a Grenadian heritage writer born in London. She studied fashion at prestigious St. Martin’s School of Art, graduating in 1984. For two decades Pam worked as a fashion journalist, magazine Fashion Editor (She, PS, Shape, Now) and freelance stylist.
After leaving the fashion world to be a foster carer for three years, Pam retrained and gained a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). Since 2018 she has taught at a special school in Westminster where she now leads the Post 16+ class and recently progressed to Middle Leader for Careers and Transitions.
Maya Angelou inspired Pam’s teenage dream of becoming an author; and it was her heroine’s death in 2014 that renewed a determination to ‘dare to try’ and make that fantasy a reality. Pam joined the group Afrikan Heritage Writers (AHW) and attended writing workshops to hone and share her craft.
Pam’s short story, ’Soul Talking’ was highly commended and published in the City of Stories anthology (2017, Spread the Word); and she contributed to AHW’s poetry and prose collection, 100 Years Unheard - WWI and the Afrikan Diasporan Woman (2018).
In 2019, Pam applied for the London Writers Award, a mentoring programme run by writers’ development agency, Spread the Word. The extract she submitted from a novel that she’d started (and put aside many times) thirty years before, secured her a place.
By the end of the programme, the manuscript had been transformed into the first draft of A Trace of Sun and Northbank Talent Management offered Pam representation. Legend Press then acquired the rights to publish the book.
While waiting for the big day of publication, Pam won the Black Ink Magazine New Writing 2022 Prize with short story, Hibiscus; and completed the first draft of her second book.
Pam’s debut novel A Trace of Sun was published on 1st March 2024 and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.