AMANDA GIBBONS
Hello! I'm Amanda, a writer and Escalator 2023/24 and Laura Kinsella Foundation mentorship winner.
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I was born and bred in rural Suffolk and have been an obsessive reader and writer since I was a child (thanks entirely to Stowmarket library and the mobile library bus).
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At nineteen, I left Suffolk's wide horizons to study a BA in Writing & Media at Middlesex University, graduating with first class honours in 2004. But I couldn't stay away for long and after a year of backpacking, I returned to Suffolk, where I found writing work in marketing and public relations. Seventeen years later, as a forty-year-old mother and a freelance copywriter, I returned virtually to Middlesex University to complete an online MA in Novel Writing. I graduated with a distinction.
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I'm now hard at work completing the novel I started on my master's degree, with support from the National Centre of Writing's talent development scheme, Escalator, and my wonderful mentor Ashley Hickson-Lovence.
ESCALATOR SHOWCASE 2024
20th July 2024
The Escalator Showcase 2024 took place at Dragon Hall in Norwich on 18th July. After eight months of invaluable support from the National Centre of Writing and our mentors, the eight winners of the Escalator 2023/24 talent development scheme read extracts from their projects in front of agents, publishers, friends and family watching in person and via YouTube. It was a great evening, even if I was thrown by my papers being in the wrong order!
ESCALATOR 2023-24
29th November 2023
ESCALATOR 2022-23
20th December 2021
Each year, the National Centre for Writing seeks ambitious, challenging, unconventional and affecting new voices in fiction writing from the East of England for its Escalator Talent Development Programme. I was one of the five Highly Commended entrants for their 2022 intake.
SHEROES IN QUARANTINE PART II
14th October 2020
Sheroes in Quarantine was Lon-art’s first online exhibition dedicated to highlighting women’s issues and roles during the Covid-19 social crisis. 'Alone for One Morning', a poem written two months after schools closed, was included in the Motherhood category.