My name is Aretha Forrest a 37-year old, black British Caribbean, teacher and aspiring writer. My journey as a writer began in the lush countryside of Montego-Bay Jamaica where I grew up with my mother. I come from simple beginnings; my mother and I lived in a small zinc house and in the mornings we bathed in the river. At 6 years old, my father took me to live in the distant land of the UK where I experienced a very different life. It is this early narrative of my upbringing that has influenced much of my writing today. I wanted to tell my story the moment I landed and have been writing ever since. I remember my favourite part of school was story time and as a teenager, I fell in love with Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry. My passion for books continued to evolve and during my graduate degree in literature, I studied Frankenstein, a literary classic that captured my scientific imagination and by the time I was 21, I’d written my first story. Now, having immersed myself in literature, I hear so few voices like my own; a small island woman living in London writing stories of science fiction and fantasy. I want to be the voice that infuses futuristic landscapes with island paradise and culture to inspire people who share a similar story to mine.
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