MEET PENNY LUKER

I’m thrilled to welcome my guest this week as this will be one of the most colourful blog posts ever. Penny writes children’s books and the covers are so bright and attractive they jump out at you. And, yes, despite I’m a wrinkly, I’ve read several of them and loved them. Time to meet Penny.

I think I’ve been a writer all of my life. When I left my job I flicked through years of diaries and found numerous (rather bad) poems on spare pages. Since leaving my paid work, I’ve taken numerous poetry and writing courses and I’ve discovered that writing is a skill where you keep on improving. Nature’s Gold and Autumn Gold are mixed anthologies with a variety of themes but my latest book, The Shadows of Love is an anthology based on the theme of love. It’s not sugar sweet love poems though!

Penny has written 3 poetry books:

mybook.to/AutumnGold     mybook.to/NatureGold    mybook.to/shadowsoflove

One of the most wonderful events in my life has been having grandchildren. I have four and have written a children’s book for each child. The Green Book and Tiny Tyrannosaurus explore family life. They touch on topics such as being greedy and stranger danger, with a sprinkle of added magic. Pablo the Storytelling Bear, tells stories of a wild polar bear and one that lives in the zoo. Following the wild bear allows the reader to become aware of the problems that wild life have to cope with in a changing environment, while the one in the zoo has magic and conversations with other animals. I feel it’s important that children’s books are fun. Desdemona the dragon without any friends, deals with loneliness and how sometimes we don’t see potential friends, because they are different from us. Children love making the sounds that go along with the story. It’s my one and only picture book and I did all the illustrations. It was such fun to do and I learned how to use Photoshop at a beginners level.

mybook.to/GreenBook                                        mybook.to/Tiny  

 

mybook.to/Desdemona                                     mybook.to/PabloSTBear

I attend a weekly writers’ group, The Winsford Writers, and so produce heaps of short stories. There’s another book on the way. Pebble on the Beach and The Mermaid were both published a few years ago. They are anthologies with mixed genres, but next I’m thinking of doing ghost short stories.

Short Stories

mybook.to/TheMermaidShort                            mybook.to/Pebble

I’ve also written The Truth Finder, a YA novel about earth in the fifth millennium. It’s about a young man who has the gift to read minds and his struggle to take control his gift. The sequel, ‘The Visualizer’ is nearly finished. I’ve been writing it all summer and I sometimes don’t want to come back to real life.

mybook.to/TruthFinder

Since leaving work I’ve definitely been focusing on my creative side. Apart from the writing I’m learning to play the ukulele and I play the piano after a fashion. I looked up all the old music I love and found easy versions to play.

I’ve also been to many art courses and classes in the last few years. I love doing batik work and painting pictures in wax. Getting messy doing printing or any form of painting is just such fun. Occasionally I produce something that someone actually wants to put on the wall. My favourite subjects are life and figure drawing and portraits. Sometimes I think that one will make a great character for one of my stories.

In real life, I help to care for some family members who are not too well, but I’m also a strong believer in life long learning. I enjoy meeting new people from all walks of life and discovering new facts, techniques and songs. Perhaps I’m a true Gemini, butterfly!

It’s great to meet another writer who crosses genres – it goes to prove if you are a writer, you can write anything!

You can find out more about Penny and her books here:

Author Blog   www.pennyluker.wordpress.com

Amazon Author Page   author.to/PennyLuker

Thank you so much for being my guest this week.

Till next time, take care.