I was recently invited onto BBC Upload in the East on World Book Day, to talk about how I became a writer, and why now I'm doing it, I can't seem to stop!

In this episode of The Talking to My Friends About Books Podcast, I chat to multi-genre author, Claire Buss, who is also Deputy Editor of Write On Magazine.

About Claire

Claire Buss is an award-winning multi-genre author and poet. She wanted to be Lois Lane when she grew up but work experience at her local paper was eye-opening. Instead, Claire went on to work in a variety of marketing and administrative roles for over a decade but never felt quite at home. An avid reader, baker and expert procrastinator Claire won second place in the Barking and Dagenham Pen to Print writing competition in 2015 with her debut novel, The Gaia Effect, setting her writing career in motion. Since then, Claire has published nineteen novels and poetry collections and had her short fiction published in six anthologies. The Gaia Effect won the Uncaged Book Reviews Raven Award for Favourite Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel in 2017 and the first book in her humorous fantasy series, The Rose Thief, won in 2019. Working with Pen to Print, Claire delivers regular Book Surgeries offering marketing help and advice to new and established authors. In 2019 Claire was part of the original team involved in creating and establishing Write On! Magazine and continues to support, work and promote the magazine in her role as Deputy Editor, a different kind of Lois who champions new writers and helps them share their creativity. Claire continues to write passionately and is hopelessly addicted to making the perfect vegan cake.

You can follow her across social media linktr.ee/clairebuss and visit her website www.clairebuss.co.uk for more information about Claire and her writing. All her books are available in eBook and paperback on Amazon at tinyurl.com/ClaireBussBooks

I love chatting to people about books, hence the clever title of my occasional podcast, The Talking to My Friends About Books Podcast.

And for this one it is sci-fi author, Anka Troitsky, who I first met many years ago when we began dancing salsa at the same time. 'Back in the day' as I like to call it, we didn't really discuss the fact that we were both aspiring novelists. And then we lost touch. Fast forward about 15 years, and a familiar face turned up at the Buddy Writing group I run in Chelmsford with fellow author, Lizzie Chantree, and it was only then, that Anka Troitsky and myself discovered that we had both nurtured, all those years ago, the same dream - to write books!

And so far, Anka has had three published - Object and Vist, Construct and Vist, and Vist and Proper Ganda. So, I invited her on to the podcast for a chat about writing and all that kind of thing.

Information about her books and her social media links can be found on https://www.ankatroitsky.com/