Heather Parker
Heather Parker lives in the Lake District with a collection of cats, dogs and a husband. Until recently she worked for the University of Cumbria but started writing seriously four years ago. Since then she has won prizes in several major UK competitions and many of her stories have been published in popular magazines including The People's Friend, The Weekly News and The New Writer.
Her novel 'Middlewitch' will be published by Drollerie Press shortly and could be described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Jeeves and Wooster. It was inspired by her life in a small English village, although naturally there are no witches or ghosts there. As far as she knows.
One of Heather's stories has appeared in Little Sisters, a book of mystery stories published by Shannon Road Press. Other publishing credits include Outercast, The Ranfurly Review, Woman's Weekly, Delivered, Secret Attic, Sniplits, The Scruffy Dog Review, Big Pulp, Expanded Horizons, Everyday Fiction, Yippee magazine, Bards and Sages, The Secret Attic, Hackwriters, Stories that Lift and Glassfire Magazine. One will be published in the Sonar 4 Anthology in 2009.
She enjoys writing all kinds of stories but her favourite genre is humour - particularly satire. Politicians, celebrities and line dancers make wonderful targets... She really admires Terry Pratchett and enjoys all his Discworld novels. He combines humour and fantasy with such astute social and political comment. She would love to have written some of his books!
An excerpt from The Prime Minister and the Egg
(First prize in the Twyford Writers Humour Competition)
As dawn broke the following day, three cruise missiles crossed Kent and headed for London, the sophisticated hi-tech radar targeting the spaceship.
But everyone makes mistakes.
'This way, Ma'am,' said Cyril kindly, helping the old lady out of the ruined Palace.
'The aliens?' she whispered, wondering if this might be a good time to abdicate.
The MI6 man shook his head sadly. 'The Americans,' he replied and she nodded, understanding.
The second missile demolished the House of Lords, which the Prime Minister thought no bad thing but the third one hit its target. The Egg shattered into a thousand pieces, sending tentacles and flippers everywhere. So did Westminster Bridge, of course, but that's war for you and anyway it was quite old.
Website : http://www.ruslandvalleyscrapbook.co.uk
Email : heather.parker@virgin.net
