About the Writer Emma Lee

I’m Emma Lee, a published poet, short story writer, novelist, reviewer, blogger and competition judge. My poetry collection, “Yellow Torchlight the Blues” is available from Original Plus. My story “First and Last and Always” was included in “Extended Play” from Elastic Press, “Fifteen” was runner-up in the Leicester and Leicester Libraries short stories competition and published on the BBC Radio Leicester Website, “Restoration” was runner-up in the Writing Magazine’s ghost story competition and “Imprints” was highly commended in a Roadworks magazine story competition. I read my story “Lizzie’s Baby” at Short Fuse at the Y Theatre in Leicester (see photo above) and the story was also published in “Sein and Werden”. I’ve read my poems at diverse venues including Leicester City Football Club, Leicester’s Guildhall and at the Polyverse Festival at Loughborough University.

I’ve pretty much always been writing. Even before I could actually write, I used to create Lego houses, imagine who’d live there and create stories for them and their neighbours, essentially mini soap operas. My very first publication was with a story in the school magazine when I was aged 5.

Around the same time my love for cats developed. Our neighbours bought home a ball of grey fluff which would hide under the kitchen table and mew. She grew into an efficient hunter who didn’t take any nonsense from other neighbourhood cats. She also racked up an impressive 18 years.

I live in Leicestershire, not a county associated with big cats – Leicester Tigers rugby club has no direct link with the big cat – but foxes – Leicester City football club’s mascot is Filbert Fox, so named because the club’s former ground was at Filbert Street. There have been unconfirmed reports of a big black cat, possibly a panther, lurking around Aylestone Meadows, but no one’s uncovered any conclusive evidence yet. However, Leicestershire is birthplace to wildlife broadcaster David Attenborough and a jaguar was briefly in residence at Bosworth Hall, which was home to Lady Florence Dixie, a Victorian animal rights campaigner. The Dixie family founded the Dixie Grammar School in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire. The school calls its newsletter “The Snow Leopard” and has a snow leopard as their school’s badge because a snow leopard is featured in the Dixie family crest.