DWC Writers

Jean is a DWC member formerly living in the Forest of Dean, and since 2023 based in the Aude, France, near Carcassonne. 

She is a performance poet, novelist, and playwright. She works with Gloucester and Cheltenham based ‘Severn Playwrights/Unapologetics’ professional playwriting group and is a member of Dean Writers Circle since 2016. Her self-published book for children (‘Travellers’) was produced with the help of DWC Chair Cheryl Mayo in 2022. She has completed an historical novel based in the time of the Peninsular War. Her research included original source materials from the ‘Soldiers of Gloucester’ Museum in Gloucester Docks.

Her short stories and poems have been long- and short-listed in regional and international competitions such as Hammond House Publishing, Wildfire Words, Hay Writers Circle, and the HWA/Dorothy Dunnett short story award. In 2024 she was awarded winner’s trophies for her poem, short story, and overall achievement in the Mid-Somerset Festival. 

Felicity moved to Gloucestershire twenty-five years ago after she returned to the UK from working in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. In addition to being a physiotherapist Felicity worked in publishing for a few technical magazines including a mining one. She co-edited Forest Leaves 5.

Felicity has written a series called The Quartet of Innocence suitable for ages 8- 80. It is a magical realism story. The main characters are four children, a magical dog and a dragon. They travel from the Forest of Dean to a parallel world.  

She has published several adult novels. The Story Teller Gene is a historical novel where each chapter is a life of the gene which starts back in the legendary time of Atlantis then moves through many places and lives, including the Palaeolithic, Assyria in the time of King Sargon and a Roman soldier in Britannia. The gene moves to a slave taken from West Africa to Barbados. It shows up in the south of France with a Cathar man at the destruction of Montsegeur. Other chapters include one in Africa and another a weaver of the Navaho people. The final chapter deals with the gene in a storyteller in the horror of Hiroshima. Two further books by Felicity are about archaic hominis the Denisovans, Full Circle and Arctic Circle.

Originally from Australia, Cheryl was inspired to write soon after she moved to the Forest of Dean 2008. Since then she has published under her author name Cheryl Burman, several novels in historical fiction, historical fantasy and middle grade fantasy. Some have won awards and been best sellers or Top New Releases on Amazon in their categories.
Several of her flash fiction pieces and short stories are published in her two collections, while others are contained in various anthologies.
A keen student of writing craft, Cheryl has had articles published on writing-related topics and maintains a popular writing tips post on her blog.

Cheryl is a former chair of Dean Writers Circle and a founder of Dean Scribblers, which encourages creative writing among young people in her community.

Jolie creates poems for adults and children that reveal her inner voice, changes thought patterns, rouses new awareness from negative memories and purifies dark emotions.  Jolie enjoys research, has a diverse medley of characters waiting for their stories to be told and is an active member of Dean Writers Circle which has resulted in several poems being published in various anthologies and magazines.

Val has won both national and international prizes for poetry and short stories and has been published by Stroud Short Stories, Graffiti, Hammond House Publishing, Eye Flash Poetry, Hedgehog Press, Writing Magazine and many prize-winners anthologies. She has also contributed to, edited and produced three anthologies of ‘fact and fiction’ based on the Forest of Dean, available at local bookshops and tourist sites.

Tricia grew up on the edge of the Forest of Dean. She has lived and worked in The Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Seychelles and then Bristol. She returned to the Forest of Dean five years ago. While living in Zimbabwe Tricia had a number of short stories published in Mahogany Magazine. She is still writing short stories, alongside family life stories, and is working slowly towards the completion of her first novel.  

Carol grew up on a farm in a village just outside Gloucester and moved to the Forest in 1996.  She joined Dean Writers Circle over fifteen years ago and has been an active member since. 

Carol writes mainly poetry and stage plays and has had poems published in various poetry journals and was Poet in Residence for the Gloucester Poetry Festival in 2023.  She leads the Severn Playwrights group in Gloucester and as a group have produced some interesting plays including one about life in a mental health institution in the 1950s. 

Penny, as she’s usually known, has lived in the Forest of Dean since 2017, when she retired from full time touring as a solo musician. She has been a columnist in several national music magazines for over thirty years. Creative writing is her greatest pleasure, though, and joining DWC has proved immensely fruitful, encouraging – and fun!. She is currently writing her memories of growing up in an eccentric but loving family, and has recently penned poetry, usually light-hearted in tone. She won the Writers West Award for short story writing in the 1980s, but has otherwise not entered competitions. Over the years, her work has been included in several anthologies of short stories and verse.