Wonny Lea

I’ve just celebrated my 70th birthday and I can’t remember a time in my life when I haven’t been doing something new! If I had to put my finger on one life-changing event it would have to be getting the opportunity to attend Grammar School. In that environment I was middle of the road in terms of academia but I left school having been taught how to learn and for me that has been better than any exam results.    
By the end of the swinging sixties I was a qualified nurse and midwife as well as being a wife and mother. Fitting life around my family I did all sorts of things from training as a florist and opening my own business; to running a crèche; to owning a pub; to working in the tourist industry! When I returned to nursing I had many of the life skills and business talents that the reorganised NHS was looking for and I successfully rose to become the Chief Nurse at Trust Board level in Cardiff.
Early retirement gave me another chance to seek out new opportunities and in what is possibly the opposite to a ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ moment I established a Nursing Agency. My eldest daughter is now the MD of that company and her input gave me the chance of a second retirement and a new and unexpected career as a writer!

 

Interview

1. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’ve just celebrated my 70th birthday and I can’t remember a time in my life when I haven’t been doing something new! If I had to put my finger on one life-changing event it would have to be getting the opportunity to attend Grammar School. In that environment I was middle of the road in terms of academia but I left school having been taught how to learn and for me that has been better than any exam results.    
By the end of the swinging sixties I was a qualified nurse and midwife as well as being a wife and mother. Fitting life around my family I did all sorts of things from training as a florist and opening my own business; to running a crèche; to owning a pub; to working in the tourist industry! When I returned to nursing I had many of the life skills and business talents that the reorganised NHS was looking for and I successfully rose to become the Chief Nurse at Trust Board level in Cardiff.
Early retirement gave me another chance to seek out new opportunities and in what is possibly the opposite to a ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ moment I established a Nursing Agency. My eldest daughter is now the MD of that company and her input gave me the chance of a second retirement and a new and unexpected career as a writer!
   

2. Describe your book ‘Jack-Knifed (DCI Martin Phelps Cardiff Bay Series Book 1)’ in 30 words or less. 

‘Jack-Knifed’ introduces the DCI Martin Phelps series that is based in Cardiff Bay. Solving the bizarre and bloody murder of a gay man makes it possible for the team to capture the psychopath who has a string of other killings under his belt.


3. What was the hardest part of writing your book?

The hardest part of this book was not the writing of it but having the courage to let someone read it once it was written. 


4. What books have had the greatest influence on you?

I first watched Lynda La Plante’s Prime Suspect series on the television and went on to read the books. It was the police procedural side of things that fascinated me and influenced me to write in that genre.  


5. Briefly share with us what you do to market your book?

• Talking to friends and family and getting them to spread the word. 
• Website
• Social networking
• Posters and leaflets
• Always responding to anyone who expresses an interest


6. How do you spend your time when you are not writing?

I have a husband, a son, two daughters and five granddaughters and each has a unique knack of stealing my time. If it’s not researching homework topics, it’s creating costumes for school productions, or baking cakes for fundraising and then of course there’s the inevitable taxi service.  When we girls get together then Cardiff can look out - as eight females means some serious retail therapy. 


7. What are you working on next?

There are now 4 books in the DCI Martin Phelps series and I am working in the fifth. Because I wanted to try something else I have written a few short stories and some poetry.  My plan for next year is to write a one-off novel based on my memories of nursing and midwifery in the 1960s and I am currently gathering material for this.

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