Scenes from North Tawton, author's childhood home.

 I'm Dr Julie Sampson, full-time independent Writer and Researcher with a previously varied career, which has included the following:

Lecturer in Literature and Creative Writing at a number of Educational places, including The University of the West of England; Somerset College of Arts and Technology; Honiton, South Molton, Street, Chard and Tiverton Community Colleges; Examiner of A level and GCSE English  Literature and Language for  London University; Tutor for Oxford Open Learning; Piano Teacher at Taunton School; Primary School Teacher and last but not least , Executive Officer for South-West Army in Taunton, way back in the 1970s.

I gained a PhD at the University of Exeter in 1997, the subject of my research being the writer H.D.

Since 2003 I have gradually given up teaching so that I can concentrate on researching and writing about Devonshire's women writers and am preparing a non-fiction book on the subject having designed the web-site south west women writers. I also present occasional talks on my work:  the talks  included speaking about "Early Women Writers of Devon", to the Literature Section of The Devonshire Association, Spring 2006.

My love of Devon, in particular of its landscape, history and literature is longstanding. I was born and brought up in the county and my parental ancestry is deeply rooted within its boundaries.

My own writing is part and parcel of the research: I've had poems published in a variety of  small-press magazines;  was feature poet in  PQR (Poetry Quarterly Review, no. 17, 2000);  poems also in the Anthology Her Mind's Eye (Pyramid Press); in the Anthology Iron Erotica; in the Second Light Anthology Making Worlds. In 2008 my poems have appeared in Shearsman 75/6 and an anthology of poems, Collected Poems of Lady Mary Chudleigh, for Shearsman, in 2009. My poetry collection Tessitura, was published in 2013, by Shearsman.

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That's me as writer, in a nutshell; the other me is the person  who lived at the place above, where I hope I've left a skeletal trace.