I don’t blame him the whole party is pretty depressing. It is so bad Phil, the family dog, has retreated to his bed. At eleven, she’s already decided family birthday parties are totally embarrassing, leaving Mum and Dad to honk out the rest of the tune, Mum’s reedy soprano clashing with Dad’s flat bass. My little sister, Livvy, is barely even singing. My party guests are singing “Happy Birthday.” It does not sound good. Simon Allen wanted to be Harry Potter, so badly that the previous term he had scratched a lightning bolt onto his forehead with a pair of scissors.īut I didn’t want to be any of these things. Harry Beaumont planned on being prime minister. Zachary Olsen wanted to play soccer for England. Box, went around the room asking each of us to stand up and share what we had written. This eventually became The Art of Being Normal.įilms: Stand By Me, Meet Me In St.When I was eight years old, my class was told to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. The young people who used the service inspired me to write a story from the point of view of a transgender teenager. GIDS is the NHS highly specialised clinic for under-eighteens struggling with their gender identity. Completing it freed me up to write something new and not necessarily based on my own personal experience.īetween 20, I worked as an administrator at the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), based at the world-famous Tavistock Centre in North London. Although no one wanted to publish it, I was excited to discover I could actually write something with a beginning, middle and end.
In my late twenties, I found myself craving an additional creative outlet and started to write a novel about an out of work actor. I’ve always loved books and stories and as a child I enjoyed making up stories in my head (usually rip-offs of Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton). These days I act in lots of TV commericals, usually playing the role of 'dishevelled mum’. After graduation, I adopted the stage name of Lisa Cassidy (Lisa Williamson was already taken by Dawn from Hollyoaks…) and did all sorts of daft acting jobs, from appearing in panto with Basil Brush, to playing a Witch in Macbeth: The Musical. Here I met some of my very best mates and spent three bizarre but happy years singing show tunes and rolling around in fake blood, blagging a degree in the process. I eventually got over my shyness and aged nineteen, moved to London to study Performing Arts at Middlesex University. Then for some strange and unexpected reason, I decided I wanted to be an actor. Chronically shy, I spent a lot of time drawing and hiding under tables. I’m suitably terrified! I think I like to write for young adults because I still feel like I am one.
I was born in Nottingham in 1980, which means I’ve now been an adult for well over half my life.
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