www.robsullivan@clara.net

...and my website is out of date, for which apologies, but I'll get to it soon, I promise!

I think I knew I wanted to write about Owain from around the time I knew I wanted to write. I went to an ordinary Cardiff primary school in the 50s, and it was there that my beloved Miss Thomas told me that, one day, if I worked hard, I would be a writer. Well, Miss Thomas, cariad, if you were alive today, you'd know that your prediction came true. I'm the author of around 30 children's novels and poetry collections, plus contributions to various short story and poetry anthologies.

When I was around 13 I read a newspaper article about Owain Glyndwr. And fell in love. But, being a child of a pair of Victorian parents who didn't believe in educating girls because they only went and got married, my "career", post-high school, was mapped out for me. I left at 15 before taking my GCEs, and my Mum found me a job as a shop assistant in Woolworth's. If not for my brother paying for me to take a secretarial course, that would have been it. But one thing hurt: whenever I filled in an application form for a job I had to write, under "Qualifications" ~ none.

I was lucky enough to marry a kind, supportive man whose motto is "don't die wishing you'd done something". I wanted and wanted to get some qualifications, and eventually signed up for the OU ~ only to find myself expecting my third child. I'm not someone who can breastfeed a child and simultaneously care fortwo others and study for a degree as wellso that went by the board after the first year. And then, miraculously, I was sent an application form ~ right out of the blue, apparently ~ for the first ever MA in creative writing at Cardiff. Which I managed to achieve. I jokingly said to my tutor, who had become a friend, "PhD next, then!". He gazed at me thoughtfully, and then said, "Nah. You wouldn't get it."

I bloody would! I thought, and without thinking too much more, applied for, and was accepted, again at Cardiff, for a PhD, with a proposal to write a novel about Owain Glyndwr. Talk about biting off more than I could chew! I couldn't even close my mouth! But I got my head down, hit the libraries both academic and public, and did two years' research before I wrote a word. And eventually I finished the book, and the thesis, and got the PhD. I did another two years' work on the book before I thought" Silver Fox ~ It begins" was ready for publication ~ but could I get a Welsh publisher to look at it? Dream on. So I tried an English agent, who loved it, wanted to try to sell it for me, but would like her colleague to read it first. Colleague's opinion was, "great book, but nobody's interested in Welsh history, so take out as much of that as you can, and put in more sex". So that was that.

To cut a long story short, I self-published, which is something I said I'd never do. But the story wasn't finished yet. So I wrote "Silver Fox ~ The Paths Diverge" and self-published that, too. Thank you, Amazon! Sales are going slowly, but well, and reviews are pretty good. I still feel sad that I couldn't interest a Welsh publisher in publishing it, but nearly 9 years' work was too much to just put in the pending tray and forget about.

And now I keep getting emails from people who have read the first two books... And I'm about to embark on research for part three.

Right now, I'm living in France, but at the beginning of March I'm going Home for two weeks to visit schools and facilitate workshops to try to enthuse as many children with the joys of writing, and the wonder of Welsh history. I've been doing that for around 25 years, now, and still get a hell of a kick out of it.

Thanks, Miss Thomas!