The Author

Carmen grew up the third child in a large Irish-Italian family on Long Island, New York. She went to London as a student in 1979 and stayed. She now lives in Killearn, a small Scottish village north of Glasgow.

Carmen started writing seriously when she was at home with her young daughter. In 1999 her short story ‘Dicing with Life’ won first runner up in the Good Housekeeping/ Waterstones Annual Short Story Competition and was published in the magazine later that year. Carmen decided to develop the characters from this story into a novel. This book is entitled ‘Flotsam is the Stuff that Floats’, which subsequently won the West of Scotland region in the ‘Undiscovered Authors’ Competition.

The novel develops the family who first appeared in the short story and expands the character of Bernadette, a disturbed child, who disrupts life for her parents, brother and sisters. The novel explores the dynamics of everyday family life, never straightforward, in a human and humorous way. It is set in a coastal community similar modeled on the environs of Long Island and Fire Island where Carmen grew up. It was published early in 2007.

She has had her work short-listed for the Real Writers 2004 short story competition, Cinnamon Press competiton 2006 and the City of Derby short story competition2008. She is currently working in a collection of short stories about the fictional village of ‘Laredol’. She has written two more novels, ‘Burger Mass’, and ‘Pretending to be Elvis,’ both as yet unpublished.