Sheila at a signing at The Bookcase in Chester-le-Street
Sheila Quigley started work at 15 as a presser in Hepworths, a tailoring factory. She married at 18 and had three daughters: Dawn, Janine and Diane and a younger son, Michael. Recently divorced, she now has eight grandchildren, five boys and three girls, and every Saturday and Sunday can be found at a football match for the under tens and under fifteens. Sheila has lived on the Homelands Estate (at present with her son and two dogs) at Houghton-le-Spring near Sunderland for 30 years.
At the end of 2007, she wrote this Christmas newsletter for her readers:
Thank you so much for all of your fantastic e-mails. The Road to Hell is now finished. Details of when it is to be released will be given out next year.
We all have good years, and we all have bad years: 2007 seemed to move from one crisis to the next. Starting in January with three car crashes in the family - thankfully no one was hurt at all - and it went down hill from there. A stay in hospital. Duke the dog, who is the dog from the books that now resides with Lorraine Hunt, suffered a stroke: he is now fully recovered and hankering after lady dogs as much as ever!
I was told a few years ago that I had cataracts: a few months ago they matured, and I can barely see. The operation is due in January; I refused to have it this year, as too much else went wrong. I reached a stage where I hardly dared get out of bed, wondering what was coming next. But most of us have suffered times like this. To say I am not frightened of the op. would be a lie: I am terrified. Then I see what is happening to others around the world and want to kick myself for feeling sorry for myself.
So please keep your fingers crossed in January, and hope that 2008 is a better place for all of us.
I was born in the small village of Herrington, between Houghton Le Spring and Sunderland. Don't know if it was the way I looked, or the way I cried, but ten days later I was given up for adoption. Taken to New Silksworth by my new mother and father, I lived a quite happy life until I was eighteen, apart from one or two upsets. I found out at age eight that I was adopted and this is very harrowing what ever age you are.
I shared the company of two wonderful dogs in my childhood: the first one - a cross collie - was Rex, who was wrongfully accused of biting someone and was immediately taken away put down, when he was eight and I was ten. Two weeks later the real culprit arrived in the street, and bit another child: he was a dead ringer for Rex, but it was too late for Rex. The other was Pepper - another lab /collie cross. I was married with two little girls and cried for weeks when she died.
I had plenty friends, and was happy playing or reading, whichever fancy took. By the time i was eleven I decided that I either wanted to climb mountains or write books. I never did get to climb a mountain, a real one that is, but plenty of metophorical ones reared their heads. However one of my dreams came true and for that I am truly grateful.
How did Run for Home come to be published? Are Sheila's stories (and characters) based on real life? Read an interview with Sheila Quigley in Shots e-zine to learn the answers to these questions.
Listen to a Woman's Hour interview with Sheila broadcast on April 5th 2004.
Meet the author: short video clips in which Sheila talks about Run for Home and about Bad Moon Rising.
Sheila Quigley talks about crime fiction - what she writes and what she reads - with fellow authors Stuart McBride, Simon Kernick and Martyn Waites; their conversation at the 2007 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate was recorded by The Yorkshire Post in its OutLoud series: and you can hear the 20 minute interview - or just read the background material - on its own dedicated page on the Yorkshire Post website. Note: If you have trouble playing the interview by clicking the top link offered ("Listen now on your PC") try left-clicking the second link ("Download and take with you...").