Writing for readers
Australian by birth, Cheryl Burman lives in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, UK, after spending a few years in Switzerland and Surrey. She loves it there. The Forest has inspired writers, including Tolkien, for generations. It’s still doing so.
Cheryl likes to switch focus from time to time so brands herself a multi-genre author, that is, she writes what she feels like. She began with fantasy for the middle graders (books the mums, dads, grannies etc also enjoy) moved to historical fiction with her novel Keepers, and her historical fantasy novel, River Witch was released in September 2022 . In February 2023, she released the sequel to Keepers, a novella, Walking in the Rain: romance, women’s fiction, historical fiction.
Find all her books here.
The greatest pleasure she receives from her writing is when people tell her: ‘I loved your book.’ It gets even better if they leave a review saying so!
Take a look at this Coffee Pot Book Club post to find out how real life, current and historical, inspires Cheryl’s writing.
Stay in touch!
For a monthly dose of news, interviews with some great authors, what’s on Cheryl’s bookshelf (and what she thinks about it), plus a short read from her own pen – sign up for By the Letter! (And the occasional give-away.)
And other things too…
Cheryl also ventures into short stories and flash fiction. Some of these pieces, together with novel opening chapters, have won prizes and commendations. Take a look here to read (and in some cases, listen to) a selection of flash fiction. Dragon Gift , her slim collection of stories with myths or fairytale themes includes several prize winners. The eBook is free when you subscribe to Cheryl’s newsletter – see below!
Cheryl is married with two grown children, and was, until May 2022, slave to a border collie who published his own book, Sammy’s Walks – highly rated by locals and visitors to the Forest alike, and their dogs. Sammy’s passing brought a flood of responses from his friends all over the world – he had a large number of them and he will be very much missed.
To get the full story
If you’re interested in the longer version of how Cheryl came to write, go here to Elaine Carnegie’s blog post where she was kindly allowed to write about herself in some detail (what a temptation!). Or listen in to this podcast she did in May 2022 for Jo Durrant’s Beautiful Universe podcast.
The rest of the writing life
Writing may be a lonely process, but writers need the support of other writers. Being a member of Dean Writers Circle has given Cheryl that support, and her writing has improved tremendously since sharing with and learning from the group. She has also found brilliant support and made wonderful friends via Twitter’s #writingcommunity.
Keen to ensure the next generation of Forest writers, she is a founder of Dean Scribblers, a small group of volunteers whose aim is to encourage the creative writing spark in young people in their community. Spending time with kids in classrooms is brilliant, and she has seen some imaginative and emotive work from 10 and 11 year olds and younger.
Cheryl is also on Goodreads, BookBub, AllAuthor and is a member of the Independent Authors Network (IAN)
Check out her Amazon author page – so friend/follow her/ask a question/leave a review!
Or contact her on [email protected]