Patricia M Osborne

How it all started

Patricia M Osborne

I didn’t start off expecting to be a writer. Yes, I’d dabbled in poetry from a young age, but never did I imagine I’d become a professional writer.  

Back in 2009 I began a BA Humanities degree to develop my music knowledge. I’d taken up learning the piano at the age of fifty, a life-long wish, and part of learning this beautiful instrument was to learn the theory around it. I took Grade 1 – 5 ABRSM music theory exams but wanted to go deeper. My piano teacher suggested I try The Open University.

At this stage I hadn’t contemplated a degree, just furthering my knowledge in music, but study has a habit of taking over. After completing all the music modules offered, I enrolled in A215 in Creative Writing and A363 Advanced Creative Writing and finished in 2013 with a BA degree (Honours) in Humanities with Creative Writing and Music. From here, my writing was no longer something to dabble in but something to take seriously. And so my creative writing journey began.

My protagonist, Grace Granville was born in 2013, with debut novel, House of Grace, although at this stage I hadn’t considered publication. In September 2014, after the loss of my mum, I enrolled in an MA in Creative Writing with Brighton University and it was during the ‘Prose Fiction’ module, I was inspired to write the second book in the trilogy, The Coal Miner’s Son, but still no real thoughts about publication. House of Grace still sat in my computer archives.

In 2016 I was persuaded by a couple of online writer friends to visit Swanwick Writers’ Summer School – a wonderful writing retreat, and it was here, I was inspired to get House of Grace to publication with Grace Granville making her debut in 2017. The Coal Miner’s Son took longer to finish and publish as I was still studying for the MA but George Gilmore finally made his entrance in 2020.

One year later The Granville Legacy was published and completed the trilogy, although not the series. There is still more to come.

However, if I hadn’t began to learn to play the piano, which in turn led to The Open University to further music theory, I would never have completed the creative writing courses and never have gone on to do my MA. And there would be no family saga trilogy, no House of Grace. At this stage, I will also add, that I used to struggle to write a five-hundred word story but now all my stories want to become novels but that wouldn’t have happened without a lot of hard work.

There’d also be no poetry pamphlets, Taxus Baccata and The Montefiore Bride, publications. And no Sherry and Sparkly (coming this summer) or Symbiosis (coming later this year).

Remember, it’s never too late to live your dream.

House of Grace trilogy is available as Kindle or Paperback and FREE with Kindle Unlimited

House of Grace

The Coal Miner’s Son

The Granville Legacy

Download trilogy with one click on Kindle or Kindle Unlimited

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Signed paperbacks for House of Grace trilogy and poetry pamphlets available via my Shop on Patricia’s Pen where prices are slashed for a limited time.