Romi Jones grew up in a family where literary gaps were filled with Irish traditions of storytelling and reinventing the truth. After decades of scribbling, encouraged by poet and novelist Julia Darling, Romi enrolled in the Creative Writing MA in order to put purpose and structure into her writing life and achieved Distinction at the University of Newcastle in 2005.
Her published short stories have included the Asham Award in 2006, and she was given a New Writing North Northern Promise Award in 2007. She plans to publish her first novel in 2012 which tells the story of Dymphna, manager of a second hand bookshop, whose life unravels as she cares for her eccentric and demented aunt. Her second novel in progress follows a year in the life of a homeless teenager and her third novel considers how a radical Tyneside grandmother attempts to stop the war in the Afghanistan.
Romi runs creative writing workshops that combine her love of writing with her experience of working with communities and disadvantaged groups; currently focussed on working with older people with dementia and the Changing Age project. She is obsessed with the sea and lives on the North Northumberland coast.
NWN Writers in Communities 