CURRENT WRITING PROJECTS - download here
- Seeking the right agent for her first novel, ‘Yellow Brick Roads’. If you would like to read chapter one of ‘Yellow Brick Roads’ please email Becky to confirm that you are over 18 as the book contains adult material. In 'Yellow Brick Roads', Fern lives in the respectable northern spa town of Harrogate. But the Harrogate she knows has a very different side and in the heady nineties subculture of drugs, petty crime and promiscuity, settling down to a middle-class life is the last thing on her mind.
- Developing ‘Yolk’ – a one woman show, which will be directed by Ray Brown and toured around Yorkshire in spring 2011. In 'Yolk', Anna (early 30s) is devastated by the recent loss of her sister (Jenny) to thyroid cancer. When Anna finds the commonplace book – a scrapbook of stories, journal entries, notes and poems Jenny has spent her final months collating – its contents help her to grieve for Jenny and come to a life-altering decision about the untimely situation in which she finds herself.
- Writing poetry with a view to publishing a collection. View some of Becky’s poems at www.peonymoon@wordpress.com and hear her read here or here.
- Developing her second - magical realist - novel ‘The Sound of Candyfloss’, which is set in an alternative Leeds.
Becky is frequently asked where her work can be purchased, particularly at readings. She has spent the last few years building up a body of work in different forms and practising her performance skills and is keen to see more of her work in print. Publishers or agents who are interested in discussing Becky’s work are welcome to email her at write@beckycherriman.com or call her on 07792266816.
WRITING HISTORY
Becky spent her childhood and adolescence dabbling in most forms from free verse to horror, but it was when her son was twelve months old that she was first published with an article in the North Yorkshire Friends of The Earth Magazine. Soon after that, she began her coming of age novel, ‘Yellow Brick Roads’, which she continued to develop whilst at university. She learnt more about her craft on the 2004-5 Yorkshire Art Circus Writer Development Programme, during which she wrote short stories and poetry and began editing ‘Yellow Brick Roads’ under mentor Robert Endeacott. In 2005 Becky had two children’s stories, which include children with disabilities, published on the Scope In The Picture site. This was followed by a commission by Rotunda Museum to write and perform an interactive story ‘Then the Earth Moved’ (insert link to performance page on ‘Then the Earth Moved’) for 4-11 year olds on the theme of Geology. Since 2006 she has busied herself compiling flash fiction, poetry and short sketches for performance and with a view to publication.
Becky finds experimenting with different forms a liberating process and thinks that writing in one form often enhances the quality of her work in another.
PUBLICATIONS
1998: ‘The Hidden Causes of Breast Cancer’, N.Yorkshire Friends of the Earth Magazine
2006: ‘Pollen of Words’, inspired by Sabine Bieli’s sculpture and published on her website
2007: ‘My Sister the Ostrich’, written as part of the Scope ‘In the Picture’ project, the aim of which was to include more disabled children in children’s literature, and illustrated by Adam Gado and Helen Hurry.
2006: ‘The Most Brilliant Idea’ animation, Scope - story written in collaboration with John Dixon, animation created by Carmel Brown.
2010: Poem ‘They Will Sing’, shortlisted for the 2009 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Annual prize.
2010: Short story ‘Close Pursuit’, shortlisted for the 2009-10 Fish Short Story Prize.
2009: ‘The Tattooist’ and ‘My Paisley Quilt’, The Ladiva Artist Movement.
2010: ‘Wolves’ and ‘My Paisley Quilt’, Peony Moon.
2010: ‘The Girl You Took Home More Than Once in ‘Along the Iron Veins’, Stairwell Books.
Publishers or agents who are interested in discussing Becky’s work are welcome to email her at write@beckycherriman.com or call her on 07792266816.
All download files are in .pdf format requiring Adobe Acrobat or a recent version of Microsoft Office to view. Dowload free Adobe Acrobat Reader here. To dowload a file right click on the pdf icon and select 'save link' (Firefox) 'save target' (IE7).
A Thousand Moths (223 Kb) 
Maria's Wedding Day (91 Kb)
My Sister the Ostrich (559 Kb)
Pollen of Words (112 Kb)
The Most Brilliant Idea (71 Kb)
Publishers or agents who are interested in discussing Becky’s work are welcome to email her at write@beckycherriman.com or call her on 07792266816.
All work © Becky Cherriman unless otherwise indicated.