Subject: BIO: Clare O'Brien
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 09:06:24 -0500

Hi all!  My name is Clare O'Brien.  I'm married with two young
children and I live in a large, bustling village in the East Anglian
countryside, near Cambridge, England.  It's called Burwell.  I'm an
English literature graduate - I studied at the University of East
Anglia in Norwich, and then in London for a while - and I'm a
qualified secondary school (high school) teacher.  I only taught for a
year though - I hated standing in a classroom doing everything but
teach teenagers about literature!  I felt more like a policeman than a
teacher...I still use my teaching skills, though - I work for a
college offering distance learning courses in journalism, creative
writing and study skills, I coach local children and I shall start
teaching an adult education course in September.  Since I left
teaching I've worked (on and off, when not attending to new babies!)
as a freelance writer, doing a range of stuff, but concentrating on
arts journalism in the literary, music and cinema fields...reviews,
celeb interviews, profiles, etc.  So far I've only really written for
British newspapers and magazines, but I'm trying to diversify and get
more work in the US and other English-speaking countries.  Any hints
on how to do that would be very welcome!!! :-) I've also done a fair
bit of fiction - literary short stories mostly, published in
small-press magazines, but I've recently got into erotic fiction and
I'm writing my first novel, which is a thriller set in Edwardian
England.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to meeting you all through reading your
work and sharing your insights...

Clare