An oracy and identity-based, literacy inventor, author and independent-publisher, I created WHO WILL WE SEE? — an accessible, adaptable personalised storybook designed to support the earliest stages of talking and literacy.
2020 — faced with the challenge of helping my two-year-old twins speak following early, rare illnesses, and seeking an effective strategy or resource in the isolation of the pandemic, I had an epiphany: why not create a lift-the-flap storybook featuring family photos as characters, where names in the story could serve as meaningful cues to prompt speech? When I read the storybook to my twins, they lit up with joy & overnight they devloped & began saying their first words — their own names, as well as the names of all seven family members included in the storybook.
2021 — inspired by the impressive results I followed my dream in the light of the Great Books tradition, and refined my work according to British Standards. Who Will We See? is state-of-the-art, evidence-informed, coherently sequenced. It supports spoken language & literacy through real names, real faces, real relationships, & playful, speech-therapy-informed scaffolds.
2022 — Submitted to various agents, including RCW Literary Agency, which guided me to my next step . . .
2023 — Launched an independent publishing house & pioneered two new genres: accessible & personalised, identity-based storybooks, and oracy-first literacy. Donated a copy to the UCL Speech & Language Library. I also explored retail routes with Waterstones but was advised that in-store supply would require distribution through Gardners, whom I reached out to . . .
2024 — Approached BookTrust, which confirmed that it does not review self-published books, also reached out to the National Literacy Trust . . .
2025 — Submitted the programme to the EEF, which described the design as “innovative” and recognised its aim of providing low-cost resources to educators, although formal evaluation of the matching SCAN P.D. was not taken forward. Attended the London Book Fair & Writers’ Summit, each of the Big Five’s copyright managers was personally given a copy & a key speaker noted that selection is shaped by many factors beyond quality alone, & another speaker advised me to show my work to CLPE, whom I reached out to . . .
2026 — Given it’s scalable design, aligned with national policy & curriculum, & concrete early oracy and reading-for-pleasure pedagogy reached out to various government bodies . . . full educational project is open to a 25-year agreement.
2027 — Guide price P.O.A.