Carolyn Thomas
Carolyn Thomas is from Tonna, a village in the Neath Valley in South Wales, but has lived on Tyneside since her days as a student at Newcastle University. Now retired after a career of teaching in Further, Higher and Adult Education, she is now enjoying the freedom to write. She has reviewed for Stand and published poetry in Dreich, Impossible Archetype, The Ekphrastic Review and elsewhere as well as stories in two anthologies published by Honno Press, Lipstick Eyebrows and Painting the Beauty Queens Orange, which contains her account of life as a gay woman in the 1970s. She lives with a misanthropic cat, still thinks of Wales as home and, stereotypically, sports a dragon tattoo.
Lipstick Eyebrows
Chosen for their contemporary edge in both setting and story, this collection reflects the lives of contemporary women of mixed age and background. The collection hosts an all-female cast covering themes of travel, arrival, change, reconciliation, departures, estrangement, death, survival and the intricacies of women's lives. Stories included: Kate Waddon: Wild Romances, Carolyn Thomas: The King of the Fairies, Gosia Buzzanca: Summer's End, Silvia Rose: By the Water's Edge, Naomi Paulus: Lipstick Eyebrows, Julie Primon: Something about weddings, Tracey Rhys: Pearls Before Swine, Chinyere Chukwude-Okeh: To buy an expensive dream, Ellen Davies: Scab
Painting the Beauty Queens Orange
The ‘70s wasn’t all glam rock and flares, punk and pogo-ing… In Painting the Beauty Queens Orange, the women who lived the decade reveal what it meant to push boundaries, claim your identity, and carve out your place amidst the winter of discontent, the scorching summer of ‘76 and the rise of Thatcherism. One young woman says a forced goodbye to her newborn baby. Another grasps new opportunities and sets sail on a LGP Tanker with a crew of men. A third asserts her sexual identity. A fourth sets up a kitchen table business that launches an international brand. These stories of ambition and adventure, motherhood and marriage, are by turns heart-breaking, humorous, and honest.