Judith Bryan

was born in North West London. Trained as a social worker, she worked in this field for ten years, mainly in housing management for the homeless.

Judith spent time developing skills as a writer and in 1990 moved to Scotland where she wrote her first book, Bernard and the Cloth Monkey. In 1997 she was awarded the Saga Prize for unpublished Black British fiction.

Her first book has been anthologised in Writing Women, Afrobeat, Gas and Air and Sable, and her poems have been published in IC3: The Penguin Book of Black Writing in Britain. She has taught creative writing and given readings of her work at venues across the UK and in the USA. She was one of the artists on tour with the British Council in 2002-03.

Judith Bryan attributes the absence of cultural links between Britain and the Caribbean as cause for a feeling of displacement, and believes a sense of 'unbelonging' is an influence in her becoming a writer.

I believe that if one lives with trust, faith and determination, being true to yourself regardless of what people say you can or can’t do, there is no limit to what can be achieved.