Karen Campbell - My Journey to Becoming an Author

President Katrina welcomed everyone to the meeting, including our speaker, Karen Campbell.

Highlighting her piece of Interesting Rotary Information, Katrina spoke on “World Water Day” and the role of Aquabox.

World Water Day took place on 22^nd March and gives us a chance to reflect on our own use of water, global water supply and solutions to health and economic problems associated with dirty water sources.

Aquabox is a charity and community project set up and managed by the Rotary Club of Wirksworth. The overriding aim of Aquabox is to provide aid, most significantly water filtration equipment, in the immediate aftermath of disasters (both natural and man-made) and also where persistent endemic conditions impact on the supply of clean, safe water.

In the past year Aquabox has supplied water filters across the world capable of producing a supply of clean water to over 13,000 people. Their filters give IMMEDIATE access to water. There is no delay in supply and no lengthy gravity-based filtration.

Since its formation in 1992, Aquabox has distributed more than 110,000 boxes to countries suffering from natural and man-made disasters, helping hundreds of thousands of people in more than 50 countries. Each Aquabox Gold is tailored to support a family group, contains water purification filters as well as items of humanitarian aid to help with shelter and shelter building, lighting, cooking and feeding, educational development and hygiene.

Our speaker for this evening, Karen Campbell, gave a very animated presentation on “My Journey to becoming an author”.

Karen went to Glasgow University, from school, to study English. After graduating, she decided to pursue a career in law enforcement, becoming a police officer in Strathclyde Police, based in Glasgow.  She was an officer for five years, before resigning due to childcare responsibilities for her two children. Later she worked as a press officer in Glasgow City Chambers while also writing short stories about police and home life.

Karen did a Creative Master’s Degree at Glasgow University on a part-time basis.  During the course she wrote stories about funny and sad events she encountered during her police service. Her course tutor advised her to write stories based on real life experiences that she knew.  Her first four novels were stories about various elements of policing, however, she did not want to be simply labelled as a crime writer and started writing novels based on different topics.

Her latest novels followed this the fifth being about a refugee coming to Glasgow, her sixth was set in Kilmartin Glen in Argyl, the seventh a historical novel based on events in Italy and her latest on life in Galloway, where she lives.  Karen explained how she researched her novels and how each book was written in a different way.

After questions, Allan Scott proposed our vote of thanks, wishing Karen every success with future novels and thanking her for a very interesting insight into her journey to becoming an author.

Secretary Ian reported that former member Jim Muir had died.  Jim had been a member of the Club for 26 years between 1979 and 2005.

Willie Talbot reported that the bonus ball winner was Charles Keeper. Willie will send out latest updates to individual members on debit/credit positions after this Saturday’s draw.