About

About Me

Hi! I’m Yvonne Spence, author, coach and dreamer. This photo was taken at Cape Cod, on the Atlantic’s western shores. As a child, I stood on its eastern shores and imagined people on the other side, connected and divided by this vast expanse of water.

I grew up, and left the islands of my birth. Life was busy and I rarely paused to ponder the deeper side of existence. Eventually, though, it pulled me — the ocean of being beyond our thinking minds, the ocean where we discover our true nature is peace.

Though I don’t follow any religion, like Buddhists I see God as a lifeforce in everything: the ocean, the sky, in forests, animals, and noisy cities filled with people. We humans might seem intent on destroying our beautiful planet, but I don’t believe we’re evil. My sense is that destructive behaviour is fuelled by fear, and fear can be healed and transformed into love. That’s why I coach and why I write—to uncover beauty within and around us.

My writing

My short stories have been published in anthologies and magazines and one was a prize-winner in a She Magazine contest. I have an MA in Creative Writing, which I was working towards when our second daughter was born over 3 months prematurely. After the initial shock, I found ways to get back to writing when it felt almost impossible and share some of what I learned in Creative Writing Tips. I’ve also worked as a Creative Writing tutor, teaching adults and children. I’m currently working on a second novel.

I have personal essays published in several places including on Motherwell magazine, and in the HerStories Project anthology, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real About Motherhood.

But this website isn’t just about me – it’s about you too. Without you, what would be the point? So let’s talk about you.

About you.

Maybe you are a beginning writer, looking for tips. If so check out Creative Writing Tips. Maybe you’ve been writing for a while and feel blocked? Try Overcoming Writer’s Block. My suggestions are different to many others, and focus largely on developing self-kindness and compassion, so you’ll walk away knowing that you can do it and that you are worth it!

Speaking of compassion—if you find it hard to feel compassion for yourself, you’ve come to the right place. In 2015, I instigated 1000 Voices Speak for Compassion, a blogging initiative which aimed to get 1000 bloggers writring about compassion on the same day. We’re still going, though we’ve evolved and most recently held a mini-summit. Check out my posts on Compassion and our website CompassionNow, or join our Facebook Group.

Maybe you don’t write, but love to read. Then you’ll love my book reviews of novels and non-fiction books that all in some way foster understanding and compassion. If you are passionate about deep thoughtful fiction, you will also love my novel Drawings In Sand a novel about a mother in recovery, or my story collection Looking For America: Short stories from the Shetland Islands.

If you are an editor or agent and would like to work with me, I’d love to hear from you! My email address is yvonne@yvonnespence.com  and if you’d like to know more about my coaching services, this is also the email to use.

If you have a book you’d like me to review, you can use the above email address to contact me. I mainly review literary fiction or non-fiction books in the parenting, self-development, mindfulness or psychology categories. I never publish unfavourable reviews of independently published books—if I don’t feel your book is a good fit for me, I’ll let you know that privately. I want to help support fellow authors!

Finally Some “Don’t”s

Please don’t email asking me to add links to your site instead of to another article you consider inferior. I have not found this a helpful way to support other writers. If you are genuinely interested, leave comments, follow this blog, get to know me and we take it from there.

Please also don’t email telling me about errors on this site and how you’d fix them. You’d only be wasting your time because I’m not going to hire you.

Whatever brought you here, thank you for coming and I hope you enjoy what you read and find it useful.