Rebecca Valentine

I write short stories, poetry, novels and have recently finished a memoir. My writing often encompasses social comment and in particular that driven by popular culture and the media industry. 

Some short stories are written specifically for competitions such as the tongue-in-cheek White, Red or Dead Madam? for the Mogford Prize which describes a bored housewife's affair with gourmet food in response to her husband's bland tastes. The story has a twist in the tail much like Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. This is a common characteristic throughout my writing and in particular with the collection of interlinking short stories of Cloud Cuckoo - a dystopian view of the negative effects of social network platforms on community and relationships that span a fifty year period into an imagined future. 

Although I have been writing since childhood I have only been writing in earnest for a year following a successful career as a top London photographic agent representing world class photographers within the music and advertising industries. My experience working at the heart of London media fuels a good portion of my writing and provides a backbone to the fictional story of Zoe Solo - a modern day warrior on a quest to slay the Medusa-like Adman and avenge her Zeus-like master photographer father's good name. 

Similarly, my non-fiction Memoir - The Book Angel - draws on experiences working with media-junkies and is an account of the highs and lows of love, work, parenthood and friendship accompanied by the spirit that is the Book Angel who sits with every writer while they turn words into lyrical prose and who carries on recording notes, poetry and reading while the writers life takes over, eclipsing the focus to write, write it all down.