TRACY BAINES

Tracy Baines started her writing career with articles and short stories for commercial women’s magazines, selling them regularly, both in Britain and abroad. She began with The People’s Friend and worked her way through a list of potential markets until she had been published in each of them. She became involved in many community writing projects in Dorset and continues to support them whenever she has the opportunity. Tracy was the regional organiser for the Dorset/Hants/Wilts branch of the Society of Women Writers and Journalists (SWWJ) and on the steering committee of Dorset Writers Network. She taught creative writing for Bournemouth and Poole college, ran many private workshops and classes and talked at literary festivals and events. Her novel The Variety Girls was published in February.

Choosing five books was hard. ‘Ultimately, I chose the books that I would save in a fire,’ she says. ‘The ones