ABOUT

© Simon Cooper

© Simon Cooper

Sandra Danby’s award-winning blog features her own fiction, her thoughts and ideas on the process of writing, and reviews of new and classic fiction.

Her first novel Ignoring Gravity, about two pairs of sisters linked by a generation of secrets, will be published in the autumn 2014. Rose Haldane is confident about her identity. She pulls the same face as her grandfather when she has to do something she doesn’t want to do, she knows her DNA is the same as his. Except it isn’t: because Rose is adopted and doesn’t know it. Finding her mother’s lost diaries, Rose begins to understand why she has always seemed the outsider in her family, why she feels so different from her sister Lily. Then just when she thinks there can’t be any more secrets…

Sandra is now working on Connectedness, the sequel to Ignoring Gravity. Still coming to terms with her new adopted identity Rose Haldane, journalist and identity detective, interviews controversial artist Justine Tree. Once again Rose falls into the turmoil of adoption secrets, a trail that leads her from Yorkshire to Spain in search of the truth of Justine’s past.

Her short stories have appeared online, in magazines and published in two anthologies: Diaspora City: The London New Writing Anthology [Arcadia] and The Milk of Female Kindness: An Anthology of Honest Motherhood [Kasia James]. Both anthologies are available from Amazon [click here for more information]. Her short stories and flash fiction have been shortlisted for various prizes. She has written about books for MsLexia magazine and The Bookseller. Her flash fiction appears online at Ether Books, click here to read them for free.

Since she can first remember, Sandra has loved reading. She grew up on a small dairy farm at the bleak eastern edge of Yorkshire where the Wolds meet the North Sea. At the age of four she was making magazines full of her own stories. When missed by her mother, she was usually found in a corner with her nose in a book. She devoured everything from the Famous Five and Secret Seven to Swallows and Amazons, from Little Women to George Orwell and Mary Stewart. All this reading led her first to a degree in English Literature in London, then to journalism where for 30+ years she wrote about the business of interior design.

Sandra also blogs about her life in rural Spain at Notes on a Spanish Valley.

 

 

60 thoughts on “ABOUT”

  4. ephemeralcas

    Anyone with a picture of Lady Chatterly’s Lover on their blog gets a follow from me. 😉 I am thoroughly obsessed with D.H. Lawrence.

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  8. Global Residence

    Dear Sandra,
    Many many thanks for passing by my site.
    Am happy to pass by to meet a like minded person and intend to drop by your site from time to time,
    Should you need further info on travelling in Bosnia, do let me know and I will try my best to provide.
    Warmest regards and best wishes.

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  9. sf

    Thanks for visitin’ my blog. I love Penguin Classics as well and really look out for ’em at book sales. Very cool header picture you have – totally shows your love of books!

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  15. rosiestaal

    What an absolutely wonderful blog. I am so glad to have found it and shall enjoy revisiting from time to time – obviously when I should be writing . . .
    I haven’t looked yet to see if you’ve blogged about displacement activities employed by writers.

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  16. Gretchen O'Donnell

    I love that you grew up reading Swallows and Amazons! I did too, but that’s rare in the United States. My grandparents were Scottish so that’s how I knew about them. I was in London last week and was so excited to see them on book shelves!

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  17. Karin Van den Bergh

    Hi Sandra, I’ve been redirected here by Andrea Stephenson (Harvesting Hecate). Lovely bio. I’ll take some time to check out your blog. Like “Freshly Pressed” 😉

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    1. sandradan1 Post author

      No I’m not adopted but have friends who are, one particular friend is a retired adoption counsellor handling reunions. I have always been interested in identity, what makes us ‘us’, and how we change and mature over the years. SD

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  24. steven1111

    Greetings friend! I’d like to thank you for commenting, liking or following my blog. As such I want to nominate you for the Dragon’s Loyalty Award. Please go to this site: http://gardeningingreenwood.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/the-dragons-loyalty-award/ to read the rules and decide if you want to accept it or not. It’s your choice and I hope you will, but it’s up to you. Mostly I want you to know that I appreciate your loyalty to me and my writing. Thank you so much!
    Steve

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    1. sandradan1 Post author

      Thanks so much Steven, it’s great to be nominated for reading blogs! I love reading about gardening and nature. I will pass on the blogging love to my readers, as I too have many loyal followers. SD

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  26. Sarah Miles

    I clicked here to comment about your header too! I just love it, the way it’s taped and battered but loved. I found a 1960 edition in a book shop a few months ago and I was so thrilled. Actually I referred to a page number in a recent piece of flash fiction – just beautiful.

    Anyway, lovely to find your blog from your comment on mine!

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  27. Jayde-Ashe

    Hi! You sound very similar to me 🙂 I absolutely adore your header picture of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, is it your own picture? What an incredible looking book! So much history 🙂

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    1. sandradan1 Post author

      The book was actually my mother’s which she daringly bought under the counter in a brown paper bag. The obscenity trial was in 1960, the year I was born, and aptly one of the witnesses for the defence [Penguin Books] was Richard Hoggart who would later be my English tutor at Goldsmiths College, University of London. So this book is very symbolic for me.

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