About

about_picAs a self-confessed magazine addict, Fiona started working on teen bible Jackie in Dundee at the age of 17. Originally from a West Yorkshire village called Goose Eye, she spent her twenties as a magazine journalist in London and moved to a crumbling old house in the South Lanarkshire countryside when her twin sons were toddlers.

When her boys left for university, Fiona felt a craving for city life again. With her husband Jimmy and their daughter Erin, she now lives in a flat in Glasgow. She loves to draw, paint, cook and run – usually with her collie cross, Jack (just the running part).

 

Some other facts you might like to know…

  • She was awarded a Blue Peter badge for making a model of the great Thames Frost Fair of 1814 out of a cardboard box lid and a piece of perspex, placing her firmly in the category of ‘girlie swot.’
  • After leaving Jackie she became Beauty Editor of Just Seventeen. She had prepared for the interview by reading The Vogue Body and Beauty Book from cover to cover and mugging up on the merits of cream vs powder blushers. However her interviewer, David Hepworth, didn’t want to talk about make-up at all.
  • When Fiona was Editor of more! magazine – which was then selling up to 400,000 copies every two weeks – she dreamed up a perky regular feature called ‘Position of the Fortnight.’ ‘Won’t last more than three issues,’ her boss said.
  • After the birth of her twin sons she went freelance and has written for Elle, Red, Marie Claire, Sainsbury’s magazine, the Guardian, Telegraph and Observer. She used to write about her children all the time – until they politely asked her to stop. Last time they were photographed for a feature (for the Observer, by the illustrious Murdo McLeod), she had to pay them.
  • Writing as Fiona Foden, she is the author of four children’s novels (published by Scholastic) including A Kiss, A Dare and a Boat Called Promise, based on her two years spent living on a bobbing narrowboat on the Regent’s Canal in Islington.
  • Her romantic comedy novels have mostly been written in her tiny and unlovely workrooms. These days she prefers to write in cafes, particularly the one in Paperchase, in close proximity to all that lovely stationery.