Authors
Malago Press contributors
Ali Bacon
Ali Bacon writes contemporary and historical fiction usually with a Scottish flavour. Her recent creative encounters have been with a Victorian photographer (In the Blink of an Eye, Linen Press 2018), and a mediaeval nun (Within these Walls, winner of the Bristol Short Story Competition local writer prize 2019).
The Absent Heart, a novel inspired by the letters of R. L. Stevenson to Fanny Sitwell, will be published by Linen Press in 2025.
Twitter/X @AliBacon
Jean Burnett
Jean Burnett studied at Exeter and Cardiff Universities and has worked as a journalist and an advertising copywriter. Her first book, a travel memoir called Vagabond Shoes won the Winchester Writers’ Conference book prize. Her first novel Who Needs Mr Darcy was published by Little, Brown with the sequel The Bad Miss Bennet Abroad published soon after by Canelo.
Her first novel in an Italian trilogy-The Devil’s Tune, about the composer Gesualdo, was self-published in 2018. She has just finished a novel about the artist Artemisia Gentileschi, under the pen name, Fran Kempton. She has also edited and compiled the diaries of a Victorian traveller – A Victorian Lady in the Himalayas.
Heather Child
Heather is a Bristol-based writer who previously lived in the Midlands. She writes contemporary literary and speculative fiction and her two novels are published by Orbit (Little, Brown). The Undoing of Arlo Knott is about a man who develops the mysterious ability to reverse his last action, as though he has an ‘undo’ button for life. Everything About You is about a woman whose virtual assistant knows every terrifying detail of her life and can fulfil desires of which she is barely aware.
Follow Heather on X/Twitter: @Heatherika1, on Bluesky: @heatherika.bsky.social or on Instagram: @heatherika1
Dawn Maria Kelly
Dawn Maria Kelly is a British born writer and singer-songwriter of Irish parentage who grew up in Birmingham and rural Ireland. She now lives in Bristol with her husband, daughter and two collie dogs – when she’s not away sailing and/or singing. Her latest novel, Laura’s List, a contemporary tale of love and loss, is out now on Amazon, kindle, iBooks.
Website: https://dawnmariakelly.com/
Kerry Postle
Kerry is published by HQDigitalUK HarperCollins and has written three works of historical fiction. The Artist’s Muse is a novel about the stormy relationship between Egon Schiele and Wally Neuzil, A Forbidden Love, set during the Spanish Civil War, and most recently The Woman in the Painting published in 2019 about the Renaissance artist Raphael.
X/Twitter: @kerry_postle
HJ Reed
Heather graduated from the University of Bristol in 1986 with a degree in psychology, and went on to lecture in psychology and criminology in and around Bristol and Somerset. She spent her spare time writing short stories of all sorts and storing them in drawers around the house. In 2008 she was persuaded to take her writing out of the drawer, and was awarded an Apprenticeship in Fiction with ‘Adventures in Fiction’ in association with the Arts Council and a grant from the Oppenheimer-John Downes Memorial Trust. In the same year, her travel article, ‘Flying Fish with Anne-Marie’ won the Daily Telegraph travel writing prize. In 2009 her short story, ‘Mr Muyila’s Bull’ was shortlisted in the Mslexia short story competition, and other successes followed, including winning the New Writer Microfiction competition in 2012. In 2014 she decided to focus on her first love, crime/thriller writing, and her novel ‘A breath of Madness’ was shortlisted for both the Yeovil and Exeter novel prizes. She completed an MA in creative writing, and found herself teaching both psychology and arts/creative writing with the Open University. Now, she writes crime/thriller fiction full time.
G.J. Swann
A passionate and committed fiction writer, Gail is also a founder and COO of a global creative company so has had to keep publishing ambitions on the back burner. But alongside her work and devotion to raising two daughters, Gail has written prolifically.
This year she is set to finish the second of two novels that tell a story close to her heart, and has five other work-in-progress novels, as well as occasional short stories (usually quite weird!), a tome of the ramblings of a too-tired-to-write writer, and the occasional poem.
Gail became a member of Just Write Bristol – originally Bristol Women Writers, when she came to live in the city in her early 20’s. Since then, and with others, she has been instrumental in its journey from critique group to performance and mentoring, the publication of our anthology ‘Unchained’ (Tangent Books) and now our exciting Malago Press publishing imprint.
She now lives ‘back home’ in Jersey and travels regularly to Bristol both for work and for writing matters. Self-promotion with the social media handle @writeswann is imminent.