Val Portelli

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Voinks was born when the ancient curse 'May you get what you wish for,' came true. Her 'Stop the world, I want to get off' manic life was transformed following a freak accident, which left her hospitalised, then housebound for a year, staring at the ceiling (which still needs decorating).

Riding to the rescue to save her sanity, a friendly Unicorn carrying her laptop and a charger (for the laptop; her dragon companions had their own power source) allowed her to resume her writing career.

This had begun at the age of nine with her first rejection letter from 'Woman' magazine. Undeterred she completed and had published her first novel, a mixture of romance, wishful thinking and memories of her 'heart-home' Malta.

Her second novel, a drama mystery, followed when she realised publishers and publicity are two different words, and having completed her third book, will shortly attempt self-publishing.

With experience of working in banking, administration and legal fields she assumed meta tags, page layouts, algorithms, styles and headings would be a piece of cake, preferably chocolate, washed down with copious amounts of coffee. Not so. She has discovered they are related to the demon characters in her mind who fight to get their stories told, merely using her hands to land them on paper or launch them into cyberspace.

She writes and posts a short story for her blog and author pages every week, and has around two hundred others waiting their turn to be completed. This doesn't stop a photo prompt inspiring another story to queue jump. Genres range from romance to sci-fi, fantasy to thriller and comedy to horror, often ending with her trademark twist.

She lives in South London, which is also Kent, and having outlived her two dogs, and the ghost one in residence when she first moved in, shares her garden with a family of non-rent paying foxes. The other inhabitants of her Victorian house include two tigers and several uninvited families of spiders and dust motes. Fortunately the dragons and unicorns are able to reside in their ancient computer homes, so don't take up too much room.

She is now a lost cause to the world of authorism, and loving every minute of it.