About Me

I began writing seriously at school in Cambridge, starting with online fanfiction, then my own ideas. I went to Oxford to study English, faffed about for a year, then moved to Edinburgh to train and work as an English teacher. After three years as a teacher, with growing frustration both at the job and at how little time I had to work on my writing, I finally took the plunge and handed in my notice. I have been exponentially happier ever since.

I am now 27 and currently working on this blog, some short stories, and my novel, NATURAL DISASTER. In 2013 I was a guest blogger on the Mslexia Blog, was longlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize and the Cinnamon Press Novel Award, and was accepted onto both the Cinnamon Press Mentoring Scheme for 2014, and the University of East Anglia's Creative Writing MA programme, which begins in September 2014. I tweet at @rozziebroon.

This blog's title comes from Tennyson's poem 'Ulysses' (1842) - here is the last stanza, in which Ulysses is surveying the ocean and resolving to pursue adventure once again:


There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; 

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, 

Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me--- 

That ever with a frolic welcome took 

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 

Free hearts, free foreheads---you and I are old; 

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil. 

Death closes all; but something ere the end, 

Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 

Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. 

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; 

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep 

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends. 

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 

Push off, and sitting well in order smite 

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds 

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

Of all the western stars, until I die. 

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; 

It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles, 

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 

Though much is taken, much abides; and though 

We are not now that strength which in old days 

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are--- 

One equal temper of heroic hearts, 

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Shortly after I started the blog, of course, Judi Dench quoted the last six lines or so in Skyfall to suggest how tenacious MI6 would be about fighting terrorism, shortly before they were all attacked by a bunch of terrorists and got an opportunity to put their poetry into practice. I should emphasise that I have no great affection for either the British Secret Service, though I do like John le Carre, or the James Bond franchise, though I do like Goldeneye for Nintendo 64. Hope that's clear.