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Paula Harmon was born in north London but her life as a country girl began at eighteen months when the family moved out, trailing slowly westwards from small town to village before settling in South Wales when she was eight.

Her writing life started with “Clanger” fan fiction and making up stories to act out with a kindred spirit. These largely involved flying unicorns. In later Welsh years, she wandered lonely as a … well, lonely person, in woods and streams and wrote about portals to another world and mysterious woodland spirits. But her greatest love was for historical fiction and mysteries and now she's writing her own.

With no clear idea what she wanted to be when she grew up apart from a writer, she graduated from Chichester University (Bishop Otter College) with a BA in English Literature and a vague idea that, after a bit of life experience, if all else failed, she’d become a teacher, even though she had never grown taller than the average ten year old. Whatever else happened, she was determined NOT to become a civil servant like her mother and be able to talk in form numbers.

At her first job interview, she answered “where do you see yourself in 10 years” with “writing” as opposed to “progressing in your company.” She didn’t get that job. She tried teaching and realised the one thing the world did not need was another bad teacher. Somehow or other she subsequently ended up as a civil servant and if you need to know a form number, she is your woman.

Her short stories include dragons, angst ridden teenagers, portals and civil servants (though not all in the same story - yet). Perhaps all the life experience was worth it in the end.

She lives in Dorset with her husband, has two adult children..

Despite receiving her first rejection letter aged nine, from some lovely people at a well-known Women’s magazine, Val continued writing intermittently until a freak accident left her housebound and going stir crazy.

To save her sanity, she completed her first full length novel, which was taken up by a publisher and quickly followed by a second traditionally published book, before she decided self-publishing was the way to go.

Over time she realised her pen name ‘Voinks,’ although unique, was not memorable, and later books were published under her own name. She writes in various genres, although her short stories normally include her trademark twist of ‘Quirky,’ which she used when setting up her own publishing company.

Several years have passed since that initial plunge into being ‘authorish,’ and she learns something new every day. Writing a weekly story for her Facebook author page, a Sunday blog post, beta reading for author friends, and keeping up with book bloggers has become a full-time job. In her spare time, she writes more books and takes care of her family of unicorns.

Val became an author around the age of nine when she received her first rejection letter from a well-known women’s magazine. Undeterred, she carried on writing for friends and family until a freak accident left her house-bound and going stir-crazy. To save her sanity she put fingers to laptop resulting in her first novel being traditionally published in 2013. A second book through different publishers increased her knowledge of how things work and she turned Indie, migrating from her original pen name of ‘Voinks’ along the way.

She writes in various genres, although the weekly short stories published on her Facebook author page often include her trademark twist of ‘Quirky.’

Reviews for her books are always appreciated, as they help buy food for the Unicorns she breeds in her spare time.