Sturminster Newton native Willow Wood has a passion for fiction and an enviable work ethic. Her most recent work, A Headful of Skye, is out now.

Willow Wood is enthusiastic about her job as a library assistant, and not just because she’s surrounded by books all day! “It’s a wonderful and versatile service that can provide help, companionship, and safety,” she explains. But it also provides plenty of inspiration for her real passion, telling stories.
“I’ve been writing stories ever since I was capable of holding a pencil,” Willow says. “I completed my first handwritten novel, which was 250,000 words, at 16 and I just kept on writing.
“I studied screenwriting at university. In fact, my most recent publication, A Headful of Skye, began life as a five-minute film script back in 2009.
“It lingered with me for years and wouldn’t go away. After graduating uni, I finally decided to write it as a novel. I wrote the first draft in 30 days for National Novel Writing Month.”
Willow’s productivity is inspiring – she admits to being a very fast typist and carving out time to write. “The hardest part is sitting down and starting,” Willow says. “Once I’ve started, it seeps into all parts of the day and everything else can wait.”
Willow’s work was first published online in 2013, and received positive reviews from readers. However, finding a publishing agent proved difficult. “My self-esteem began to trickle away,” she says. “I was writing play scripts with local drama groups, two other novels, but always coming back to A Headful of Skye and feeling ‘I’m not good enough’.

It took me a long time to realise I was depressed. It wasn’t until 2020 that the isolation stripped everything away and laid it out plain for me to see. Thankfully, the love and help I’ve received is why I’m here today with a published book.”
In the end, Willow didn’t pursue an agent for her book. “I chose to self-publish A Headful of Skye through Amazon,” Willow says. “Although I’ve always known that publishers and agents want to invest in books that are already bestselling ideas, I realised that I don’t have to hold myself to that opinion to be validated.”
Willow is in the process of getting A Headful of Skye into independent bookstores, but until then you can buy it online from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Not one to stand still, she’s already got her next few projects lined up…
“I’m currently close to finishing the first draft of a novel that’s been close to my heart for a few years, the first of an LGBT fantasy series about a knight who promises her firstborn to a witch. Once that’s done, I will hand the messy draft to friends for initial reactions and feedback.
“While that’s simmering, I’m going to work on the completed draft of Bloodshot Buck, a military sci-fi series.”