Aug 12

Aug 12 Rosi Taylor

Author Rosi Taylor

Biography

I was born and brought up in Derby in the English Midlands. Following A levels I did a secretarial course and worked as a secretary in Derby for a few years. Later I moved to Yorkshire and met Ian through our mutual love of poetry and literature. We married and have one son, who has now grown up and left home.

My first meeting with Ian was a little unnerving. He arrived unannounced at an evening meeting of York Poetry Society, having spent several hours in a nearby wine bar in the Bohemian company of young folk musicians and painters. He was a little drunk, but insisted on reading some of his recent work. The Society members felt a bit intimidated, but no-one objected. The poems he read were magical, and led to our whirlwind romance and our longstanding relationship with the Society.

During our married life I have had many and varied jobs including prize bingo calling and even selling double glazing!

I passed the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art medals and licentiate speech examinations prior to embarking on a degree course as a mature student. I had to commute 60 miles each way to do this, but achieved a BA degree in English and Drama validated by Bradford University. Then I taught speech and drama for several years before becoming a professional actress and voice artiste.

For the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations I directed a play with children from the group of villages close to where we lived and Ian wrote a comedy sketch which was performed by a group of local adults. It was a special event, where the local community worked selflessly together. This experience made me think that working with children through drama was what I wanted to do.

I founded and became artistic director of my own youth theatre which was based in East Yorkshire. It was an activity I could share with our son, who was a member of the group. I wrote plays for them, which they performed, as well as performing other scripted plays. My youth theatre joined forces with a youth theatre in York and we had several creative residential weekends together in Scarborough.

I also wrote plays for performance at the school where I taught drama and I also ran a drama club there. My students performed plays scripted by myself and also those of other playwrights. I later devised a play for a local youth club drama project.

The acting and voice work I have done has not been prolific, although I have acted in feature films, short films, television and on the stage. As we have lived mostly in rural locations travelling a fair distance for some of this work has sometimes been a bit difficult.

But we didn't want to cut ourselves off from our rural surroundings, as Ian and I both love the countryside and its wild creatures.

It seemed natural that we should begin writing together. We share a love of Thomas Hardy's writing and the magic (now sadly disappearing) of the rural landscape. These interests have inspired our novels. We had no wish to write just ordinary stories, but unique ones! This is where Creativia enters the picture as they have now become our publishers.