Yvonne Dykes
Yvonne Dykes has lived in London her whole life and is the seventh of nine children. She’s married with two grown-up sons. She’s currently working as a supply teacher in primary school and has been teaching for seventeen years. She studied with the Open University and has recently completed an MA in Education at the Institute of Education. Yvonne collects contemporary art and loves gardening.
Yvonne’s first novel Brondesbury Villas was completed in 2000 but she left it to one side to focus on her teaching career. In 2014, she self-published it on Amazon Kindle. Since 2014, she has attended creative writing courses at City Lit, an institution she is very proud to be associated with. Her first short story, A Death, was published in City Lit’s Between the Lines Anthology in 2015. Yvonne also writes the contents of a blog, Shop Wear Live Design, which advises shoppers on buying art and contemporary design products at discount prices.
Q: What is the first book you remember reading, or being read to as a child?
A: Amazingly, I was never read to as a child. My parents were far too busy! Despite this, I was an early reader and read all of the C.S Lewis Narnia books before I was eight. I had to read them again much later to recognise the deeper meaning.
Q: Is there a book that you keep going back to and how many times have you read it?
A: Ryszard Kapuscinski’s The Shadow of the Sun (Penguin, 1998); I have read this at least five times.
Q: Who is your person of inspiration?
A: My English teacher at secondary school, Diane Neumann.
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