Jill Owen
Jill Owen lives in Leamington Spa, but is a London girl at heart.
She is busy being an accountant in the daytime but is trying to cut down on working hours in order to write. Her favourite things to do are going to an exhibition or to see a band with her husband, or taking a long walk in the Cotswolds with a pub at the end.
Always with a story brewing at the back of her mind, Jill has only recently been able to consolidate those thoughts into written pieces. Her day job does not require creative writing; when Jill’s first attempt at flash fiction Spitting Out appeared in Thrice Fiction 2014, it was practically the only piece of fiction she had written since her school days. Since then she has written a blog for www.christopherfielden.com.
Q: If you could travel back in time, which of the great writers would you like to meet and why?
A: I’d like to meet Dylan Thomas in the Black Lion Hotel in New Quay. An incredible and unique use of words. I’d love to hear him read a poem in that wonderful Welsh voice.
Q: Do you have a lucky writing talisman? If so, what is it?
A: My cat, sitting on my desk dribbling on my notes and breathing fishy breath into my face. Occasionally adding her own sentence by standing on the keyboard.
Q: Is there a book that you keep going back to, and if so, how many times have you read it?
A: I tend not to go back to books but like to keep the memory of them untouched. But I did read Lord of the Flies for the first time at the age of eleven, and came back to it at various stages of my life. It paints an amazing picture of how in a democratic society not everyone has an equal voice.
Q: Who is your personal inspiration?
A: My children. They help you to see things you would never normally see. I defy anyone to walk down their street with a five-year-old and not experience a completely different world.
