DON'T TELL ME I CAN'T… ...fulfil my childhood dream

Gillian Harvey always loved writing, now she’s a published novelist

- Gillian Harvey

Clutching the brightly colored book in my hands and reading my name on the cover for the 10th time, I feel giddy. After years of writing and endless disappointments, I’m finally a published author at 41. Like many would-be writers, I’ve dreamed of this day most my life – but, deep down, I never expected it’d come true.

As a teenager, I underachieved at school after being called a swot, purposely keeping myself under the radar by doing the minimum. My parents enjoyed reading my stories and poems but encouraged me to have realistic career plans, while a university boyfriend’s jokes about my ambition made me feel I wasn’t good enough.

Despite this, I never stopped writing, always scribbling ideas, and I’d take my notebook to windswept Cornish beaches on holidays. In the 2000s, I treated myself to a laptop and kept tapping away. As well as trying my hand at writing ghost stories, mysteries, and thrillers, I’d pen poems for people’s birthdays or leaving dos at work.