We are lucky to have a wide variety of talented authors who are all part of Chasing Driftwood in one way or another. Some of our writers are working on books, poetry, short stories and more. Others have completed work and are currently seeking publication. A few have chosen the self-publishing route and have books available to purchase, while others have secured traditional publishing contracts. All of these authors are part or have been part of our adult writing group, where progress is the main aim!
Chantelle Atkins was born and raised in Dorset, England and still resides there now with her husband, four children, and multiple pets. She is addicted to reading, writing, and music and writes for both the young adult and adult genres. Her fiction is described as gritty, edgy and compelling. Her debut Young Adult novel The Mess Of Me deals with eating disorders, self-harm, fractured families and first love. Her second novel, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side follows the musical journey of a young boy attempting to escape his brutal home life and has now been developed into a 6 book series. She is also the author of This Is Nowhere and award-winning dystopian, The Tree Of Rebels, plus a collection of short stories related to her novels called Bird People and Other Stories. The award-winning Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature was released through Pict Publishing in October 2018. Chantelle has had multiple articles about writing published by Author’s Publish magazine. You can follow Chantelle’s blog here https://chantelleatkins.com/ and find her books on Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chantelle-Atkins/e/B00J7ACVCY?ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vu00_tkin_p1_i0
Born and raised in the county town of Dorchester, Dorset, Sim began scribbling away stories on scraps of paper since before he can remember. He spent a lot of his childhood on adventures, walking the dogs in the woodland surrounding Thomas Hardy’s cottage with his family. Something about the cottage and ‘the man what wrote stuff’ who had lived there sparked a fire inside him. It was from there he began to focus on writing more seriously.
In 2012, Sim signed up to Open University to study Creative Writing alongside working full time. He isn’t quite sure how he made it out alive, but he graduated with honours and began using the skills he had acquired to edit and redraft old work.
In 2019 Sim, along with some talented friends, set up blandfordliteraryfestival.com. The town’s first-ever literary festival. The events were a huge success with both writers and readers alike.
In November, 2020 Sim joined Chasing Driftwood Writing Group as an equal Director and partner with Chantelle.
Sim’s website; https://www.simalecsansford.com/
Sim’s books; author.to/SimAlecSansford
Toby Martin.
I’ve been writing since I was ridiculously young, although I’m happy to say I think I’ve improved a lot since those initial makeshift books in felt-tip pen and terrible spelling. I’m constantly looking to push the boundaries of what I write, and whilst my current preferred avenue is contemporary fiction, I’m looking to expand into some speculative fiction as well, should time allow.I was accepted into Bournemouth University in 2015 and have more recently started a postgraduate degree in Creative Writing & Publishing. Outside of writing, you can usually find me either with a performing arts group, with a humanist group, or doing way too deep analysis of any creative work I feel you might like. You can find out more about me here; https://tobythewastrel.wordpress.com/
chasingdriftwoodwritinggroup.org 