On today’s show we get to meet Margaret Johnson, who’s published by Lake Union Publishing under the pen-name Kitty Johnson. Margaret doesn’t mind whether people call her Margaret or Kitty – she answers to both names!

Margaret first started writing in her twenties after finishing a Fine Art degree. Faced with an uncertain future – making money from art is a notoriously precarious prospect – Margaret had the bright idea of writing a best-selling novel to finance her painting career. This first novel was never published – she says she basically swapped one precarious way of living for another - but by the time it was completed, Margaret had firmly caught the writing bug. Since then, her writing career has included romance novels published by small publishing houses, a raft of graded readers for academic publishers which have sold around the world, as well as women's fiction which she self-published before she snagged an agent – the wonderful Carly Watters of PS Literary – via a pitch event organized by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. That was her gateway to publication by Lake Union Publishing – Five Winters was published on the 1st of January 2023, and Prickly Company is to be published on 28th May 2024. A third novel – Closest Kept – will be published sometime in 2025.

Margaret frequently draws on her life and experience for her writing – with Five Winters, she used her memories of hopeless crushes in her teens and twenties, as well as her strong yearning to have a child. Prickly Company was partly inspired by the small community where she lives, as well as by her experience as a volunteer for the charity Hodmedods Hedgehog Support. She also drew on her observations of students at the beginning of a new course – the way different characters come to the fore, and others stay back, and how some people can dominate proceedings if the teacher isn’t careful.

You can learn more about Margaret on her website at https://www.kittyjohnsonbooks.com and follow her on Instagram @kittyjohnsonbooks-which will be the best place to be kept up to date on her next release!

Support your local bookstore & this podcast by getting your copy of Five Winters or pre-ordering your copy of Prickly Company from Bookshop.org.

A little about today's host-

Author and musical composer Kathleen Basi is mother to three boys and one chromosomally-gifted daughter. Her debut novel, A SONG FOR THE ROAD, follows a musician on an unconventional road trip. Bestselling author Kerry Anne King writes, “In a novel filled with music, heartbreak, and surprising laughter, Basi takes us on a journey that encompasses both unimaginable loss and the powerful resilience of the human heart.”

Meaty, earnest, occasionally humorous, and ultimately uplifting, Kathleen’s fiction highlights the best within ourselves and each other. She writes monthly reflections on life, writing and beauty on her newsletter. Subscribe at https://kathleenbasi.substack.com/.

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