Write From the Heart - the Extraordinary Real Life Story of Glasgow's Favourite Novelist

Margaret Thomson Davis

Category Autobiography
Pub Date June 2006
ISBN 1 84502 092 8
Extent 256 pp.
Price �9.99
Format 234mm x 156mm, paperback
Plates 8pp black and white photographs



Writing My Life is the inspirational story of how Margaret Thomson Davis became a successful writer against all odds. From an early age Margaret's father would tell her and her younger brother frightening bedtime stories like Maria Marten and the Murder in the Red Barn and Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber. And when her brother then had nightmares, young Margaret would make up a nice story to calm him down and get him off to sleep. At school, her natural storytelling instincts came to the fore and she would make sure that there was always a cliffhanger to the story she was telling just as the bell rang for class. And it was a skill which kept the school bullies at bay.

But it was a long way from playground stories to becoming a successful writer. Writing My Life recounts Margaret's personal struggles through an unhappy childhood, the premature death of her younger brother and her difficult relationship with her mother. Often, her mother would leave her father with no warning and move out of the family home, taking her son with her but leaving Margaret at home alone. But her difficult childhood experiences and an unhappy marriage of her own also gave Margaret Thomson Davis the building blocks for her career as a writer and after the success of The Breadmakers in 1972 she never looked back. Writing My Life is a personal story where the truth is often stanger than fiction and where Margaret Thomson Davis's love of Glasgow and its people shines through. A moving and hugely entertaining autobiography which will appeal to her many fans and general readers alike.

AUTHOR INFORMATION Margaret Thomson Davis is the author of over 20 novels, the best known of which is The Breadmakers, first published in 1972. Still in print, it was described in the Daily Express as 'a Glaswegian Coronation Street'. Her last novel, A Darkening of the Heart featured poet Robert Burns as a central character.