Heather Richardson was born in Northern Ireland in 1964. She studied English Literature at the University of Leicester, and over the next few years worked in a variety of non-literary jobs, including stints as a bus driver, pharmaceutical sales representative and company director. She later studied part-time to gain an MA (Lancaster University) and PhD (Open University) in Creative Writing. Her fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction has been published in magazines in the UK, Ireland, Europe and Australia, including Stinging Fly, Meniscus, Incubator and the European Journal of Life Writing. In 2000 she was winner of the Brian Moore Short Story Award. She has published two novels, Magdeburg (Lagan Press, 2010), and Doubting Thomas (Vagabond Voices, 2017). In 2006 she began teaching at the Open University, and is now part of the academic team running the OU’s online MA in Creative Writing. Her current interest is narrative textiles, exploring life writing and story telling through fabric and stitch.

Photo credit: Elaine Hill