After 30 years in the classroom, Kate Swindlehurst has now been writing full-time for 10 years. She gained a distinction in the creative writing MA at Anglia Ruskin University and won an Arts Council Escalator award enabling her to complete a novel based on Argentina’s disappeared. She has also produced a memoir dealing with the impact of Argentine tango on Parkinson’s disease and two short story collections. Writing the Garden is a collection of stories inspired by her 20-month residency at Cambridge University Botanic Garden, where she was mentored by author Ali Smith. Her story 'Inside' is taken from this collection. Two of the other stories fare due to be published in the ARU anthology Crisp later this year. Kate is currently working on a novel dealing with our responses to the refugee crisis. A northerner by birth and habit, she now lives and works in Cambridge.