Born in New Zealand, into a family of florists, EMMA TIMPANY studied botany for two years as part of her undergraduate degree before graduating with a degree in anthropology. She worked as a florist in New Zealand and London, and, after moving to Cornwall, ran a small flower-growing business for five years. Emma’s short stories have won three awards including The Society of Authors’ Tom-Gallon Trust Award. Her books include The Lost of Syros, longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize in 2016, and Travelling in the Dark, winner of the Hall and Woodhouse DLF Prize 2019. She co-edited Cornish Short Stories which was shortlisted for a Holyer an Gof Award 2019. She teaches creative writing, mentors emerging writers and works as a ghostwriter for a private autobiography company. Alongside Felicity Notley she organises the Falmouth-based wiriting group Telltales, which showcases and inspires new writers.
These short stories - about all manner of green and growing things - are tender, lyrical, and compelling. Whether real or imagined, familiar or exotic, delicate or potent, the plants and flowers depicted offer insightful meditations into the ways that the lives of plants can become entwined with our own. -- Becky Tipper * writer and reviews editor at The Short Story * The stories are all so very different, some of them being quite compelling and tender featuring an interesting variety of voices and nationalities with a wide range of characters and settings -- Advolly Richmond * Garden writer, historian, and a television presenter, who regularly appears on BBC Gardener's World * A lovely collection of short stories with plants front and centre. If you’re a gardener or plant lover, then this is a book for you. -- Leif Bersweden * Author of Where the Wildflowers Grow and Botanist * This is the first time I have read a fiction collection entirely around the botanical, and editor Emma Timpany has done an impressive job of selecting a range of moving, absorbing, and sometimes surprising stories. * Hortus Journal *