Brief Author Bio:

I'm a 22-year-old, loud, opinionated, sometimes-funny and generally-in-the-way, French adopted Londonder. All in all, I'm a nice, friendly girl who can't really stop talking *ever*, a huge Harry Potter nerd - with my voice on Live on PotterCast to prove it! - and an interwebs-addict. I've been reinforcing my own geekiness levels this past year, thanks to my wonderful boyfriend, who owns tons of Doctor Who DVDs.

I've done my first NaNo last year in London and won it. I absolutely love month-long noveling and I'm especially fond of write-in in cafés or librairies. If you'd like to attend awesome write-ins organised by friendly and welcomong NaNoers in Central London, keep an eye on the London Regional Lounge - we will be there with dates and writing spots!

When I moved to London a little over a year ago, I brought along a BA in English from a leftist French uni, way too many pictures of my cat, the best cookie recipe in the world and much English language-related geekery. I spent a rather academically-unsuccessful-but-otherwise-utterly-awesome study abroad year at the University of Westminster and I now work as French language assistant in two North London schools.

I got introduced to the concept of 30-day noveling by one of my housemate and a bunch of my friends. We had a conversation pretty muc to the effect of:
Friends - 'By the way, we're writing a 50,000 words novel in November.'
Me - 'Wow, you guys are crazy!'
Friends - 'Pretty much, care to join us?'
Me - 'Sure, sounds fun.'

Thus, Stars Shine Brighter was born. What may I say? It's 50K, it's got space, it's got pirates and when I thought of it I hadn't even seen Firefly yet!

Oh, and also, I wrote it in my second language. Mainly for bragging rights, it's true, but hey, it's also how NaNo started! Long live us big praise-whores :)