Freda Lightfoot

Freda Lightfoot was born in Oswaldtwistle, a small mill town in Lancashire, famous for James Hargreaves and his spinning jenny. She always dreamed of becoming a writer but this was considered rather an exotic ambition and her parents encouraged her to 'get an education' first.  No one in her family had ever had one before, so she was elected to blaze the trail. She attended Edge Hill Training College in Ormskirk, and worked as a primary teacher for a number of years.  She married in 1969 and moved to the Lake District with her two daughters but she still dreamed of becoming a writer. She tried anything and everything. Short stories, serials, a children’s novel, picture scripts and a couple of Mills & Boon contemporaries, although she gained more rejection slips than cheques.  The aim was to send material out faster than it came back.  But at last the day came when she sold her first short story to D.C.Thompson.  Following this breakthrough she seemed to develop the knack, as she went on to sell many more stories to My Weekly, People’s Friend, and My Story magazine.  With renewed confidence she tried again for Mills & Boon, this time with a historical, Madeiran Legacy, which was accepted (reprinted as Wine and Roses by Severn House). She wrote four more of these and only then did she have sufficient confidence to try for the mainstream fiction market, selling Luckpenny Land to Hodder & Stoughton in 1993 on a fantastic three book contract. She has recently fionished her twentieth novel for them. 

Website : www.fredalightfoot.co.uk

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