About the Women Writers Network
The Women Writers Network is a volunteer organization that seeks to raise awareness of the work of women writers, mainly through our Bluesky account and monthly online chats. We originally came together in 2016 through Women Writers School, a business founded by Laurie Garrison, that taught online marketing skills to creative writers. Her mission was to raise awareness of sexism in publishing and encourage women writers to collectively support each other in order to overcome its negative effects.
Our members are creative writers who have been published by Unbound, Mslexia, Comma Press, Dear Damsels, Palgrave Macmillan, The F Word and others. We have given talks at Bridport, Oxford, Cheltenham and Ilkley Literary Festivals, to name a few. Several of us have MAs in creative writing and others have higher degrees in English Literature. We are based in the UK, USA, France and Switzerland. Our career backgrounds include research science, university lecturing, medical publishing and teaching. In short, we are a very diverse group of women writers.
Our Members
Sandy Bennett-Haber is an Edinburgh-based Australian writer. With a husband, two children and too many side projects, she writes amongst the hubbub of family life. Editor of You Won’t Remember This—Travel with Babies and longlisted for the Primadonna Prize, Sandy has published short stories and creative nonfiction and taught creative writing workshops. Her writing has appeared in Dear Damsels, Coin Operated Press, Waymaking, North Bridge: Where We Traveled, and she is currently writing a speculative fiction novel.
Anne Hamilton is an author, editor and creative writing tutor, who lives with her teenage son between Edinburgh and Co. Mayo. Her first book, a travel memoir titled A Blonde Bengali Wife (2010), was based on her experiences in Bangladesh, which inspired and still supports the charity, Bhola’s Children. Her debut novel, The Almost Truth (Legend Press, 2024), was the winner of the Irish Novel Fair and shortlisted for the Primadonna Prize. Her second novel Letters from Elena (Legend Press, 2025) was longlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Award and the Yeovil Prize. Anne has a Master’s degree from Trinity College, Dublin, and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. She currently works for The Open University and Cambridge University. She is one-fifth of Gill Merton, author of the collaborative novel Entitled (KDP, 2022).
Helen Taylor is the author of the memoir love lay down beside me and we wept (Unbound 2025) and a novel, The Backstreets of Purgatory (Unbound 2018). She also writes the occasional opinion or feature piece for newspapers and magazines, most recently for Woman & Home. She was brought up in the Lake District and the north-east of Scotland, and currently lives in France. Before becoming a writer, she worked as a junior doctor in Glasgow and then as a research scientist in Oxford and London. The profound effects of a severe psychiatric illness, during which she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, led her away from her intended career. Writing played a crucial role in her recovery. Her memoir tells part of this story.
Valeria Vescina is an Italian and British novelist, reviewer, and creative-writing tutor. She debuted at the Oxford Literary Festival in 2018 with That Summer in Puglia (literary fiction). Her second novel, Habit of Disobedience (historical fiction), is inspired by a forgotten story of 16th-century Southern Italian women. Valeria is a graduate of the Goldsmiths Creative & Life Writing MA.
Liz Champion is a writer, teacher and communications/marketing specialist from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. She has published two collections of nonfiction stories, and writes Midlife Without a Map, a Substack publication about the highs, lows and laughs of midlife. Liz is also a qualified life coach, working with writers to help them achieve their creative goals.
Rita E. Gould is a blogger, freelance writer and editor with an MA in English from Rutgers. She spent the first ten years of her editing career working in Philadelphia’s medical publishing industry. Her flash fiction has appeared on the Planet Paragraph and the 2024 National Flash Flood websites. Her current projects include short fiction and a speculative fiction novel.
Gail Aldwin’s latest novel The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell is a dual timeline mystery which draws upon her interest in true crime podcasts. She writes collaboratively as part of 3-She to create short plays and comedy sketches that have been performed in arts centres across Dorset. On her blog The Writer is a Lonely Hunter, you can find posts about Gail’s itinerant life as an author.
Nastasya Parker’s contemporary literary fiction has appeared on the Funny Pearls humour website and in two Bristol Short Story Prize anthologies, as well as The Phare. She’s written an irreverent novel giving Eve’s perspective on the creation myth, and she blogs about the random stories we find in daily life.
Laurie Garrison is the founder of Women Writers School, which transformed from a small business into the Women Writers Network volunteer organization. She is the author of an academic monograph titled Science, Sexuality and Sensation Novels as well as a list of original research publications on Victorian literature and history.
Beverley Ward is a writer, facilitator, consultant and writing coach. She was the winner of the Andrea Badenoch Award at the Northern Writers Awards 2013 and has published three books: Archie Nolan: Family Detective, Dear Blacksmith: A Journey of Love and Loss and Writing Revolution: Tips and Ideas for Young Writers.
In Memoriam
Sarah Tinsley was a British writer living in France. Her short fiction and articles have been published widely, including the Huffington Post and Litro. Her forthcoming first novel won an editorial prize and was long listed for an agency prize.