This is the unofficial bio… candid, messy, raw, REAL.
If you’ve just visited my About page, you’ll know a little about me.
That’s the official(ish) bio — as official as I can muster. Referring to myself in third person makes me feel like a pompous ass, which I don’t think I am.
Keep reading for a more extensive and messier offering of who I am and more about the projects I’m currently working on.
If you’re not into that… click away…
More About Me
I am an introvert… a fact which makes this particular task of defining myself and sharing that definition something of a nightmare. I am a mother (2022), a divorcee, a partner, an immigrant islander, a writer and artist, a Scorpio (if you subscribe to astrology), an agnostic, a (mostly) practical liberal, and for lack of a better label: a slightly cynical Care Bear.
Interests
My interests include art, psychology, sociology, and of course, I love literature—it’s a slow-burning conversation across most barriers, including time. If there exists a thing which incorporates all or most of these elements, I’m there. I am a bookworm (or at least I was, prior to the Implosion of Life As I Knew It of 2019/20) and a gamer (PS4, mostly), an artist (although I’m deeply uncomfortable calling myself one), and a self-proclaimed weirdo (it’s easier if I adopt the term myself and embrace the hell out of it. It saves the bullies some time. (I’m generous like that.)
Writing and Art
Writing helps with definition. To define the term ‘weirdo’ — and honestly, the word weirdo could always do with more definition; too many have misused the label so that it muddies the water to cover the real perversion of society — Ahem. As I was saying: to define the term ‘weirdo’, as it applies to me, is to say I’m neurodivergent, which is to say that I struggle immensely (hiding that struggle for most of my life) to fit within society’s expectations and conform to social niceties (and some rather more questionable ‘norms’) without suffering internally. The recent realisation of the neurodivergent aspects of myself, which sums up, explains (dismantled, then reassembled like shoddy flat pack furniture) at least 80% of my life) began as an exploration of the self and evolved into answers to long-standing questions about the culture I grew up in, the world in which we live, and my place in it. I’m writing about these things and more on my blog*.
I’m currently working on a longer non-fiction project, Lens, alongside tackling (and enjoying) motherhood and coping with chronic illness, and I’ve started an art project (Personified, a comic) so overwhelming to me it feels like I’m leaking pieces of myself onto the page like tiny brain babies and I’m scrambling to get and keep them all in one space… Maybe that’s just something of a metaphor for how rapidly I fell apart over the last few years and somehow, after piecing myself together again, I’m finding comfort in both these familiar and new formats (writing and art, respectively) to express as much as I can without fireworking my tentatively restructured life while making it meaningful for the reader or viewer. That’s difficult because life is messy, building is messy, and writing or drawing a first draft about anything is messy.
I also write fiction.
I’ve written a standalone book, Blood’s Veil, which is a contemporary novel set on St Helena (my birthplace) exploring some difficult themes through fiction. The line between fiction and truth is widely debated and speculated upon across the literary hemisphere but for clarity’s sake, particularly since island culture is tentative territory, the characters within this book are entirely fictional and events (while drawing upon my own experience) do not mirror events within my own life. I’ve written about my take on truth within fiction in one of my blog posts (pending upload).
I’ve also written a book within a fantasy series: Immisceo Taken, which is set in a time of horse-travel, cloak and dagger, and magic and it explores themes of segregation, oppression and deviance, and links magic with emotion, exploring the complexities of dysregulation within elitist society. The second book of that series has been on hold since 2017, unless 600 words every 10 months or so counts as progress… Some things are meant to be placed on hold, and there is no rushing that, but I’ve finally reconnected with that project, am 30,000 words in, and I hope to finally release this sequel at the end of 2026. There are more details about book one, Immisceo Taken, here. Immisceo is, by the way, a Latin word for mix in or blend.
To mark the occasion of pending projects and works in progress, I used an AI** image creator on a current photo of myself and affixed a hard hat atop my head. Enjoy. See a few more actual pictures below.
PPE, baby!
P.S. I also enjoy cooking and baking, and socialising in safe spaces, but these spaces are too few, and to say the whole world is currently experiencing an energy crisis is apt enough as long as I, too, am considered within that statement.
Through the Ages
FOLLOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA
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Bluesky: @shonaclingham.bsky.social
YouTube: shonaclinghamYT
Contact Me (Preferably by pigeon post. Kidding.)
Footnotes:
*Old blog posts are marked as previously published as these were hosted at now-defunct domains under my former married name: Moyce and my middle name: Kaye. Two fiction books were originally published under the name of Shona Moyce as well. These have since been republished as alternate editions and while the first editions are no longer available, the content remains unchanged. You can find them on Amazon.
**You can read about my thoughts on AI in a recent blog post and also visit the Attribution page for details. (Spoiler: I don’t use AI to write any of my books or blog posts, and will usually specify (where practical) if I use it in my marketing copy.)