The Voice in Lindy's Head
Published 30 January 2013
University of Brighton alumna Lindy Jones, an avid writer most of her life, has just completed her greatest literary challenge – a book about her battle with terminal illness.
With motor neurone disease draining her strength and ability to talk and eat, she has written about living life in a "strange new world of serious illness" whilst remembering and exploring her previous one as an "energetic teacher and healthy woman".
In 'The Voice in My Head is Perfect', Lindy admits frankly that "suffering has not made me noble, it has released my inner bitch, so don’t expect another earnest account about the spiritual delights of dying".
Critics have called the book "moving and funny" and "a warm and witty memoir exploring a deeply painful journey with fierce honesty full of love, laughter and affection".
Lindy, then Lindy Lucas, studied at Brighton Teacher Training College (part of Brighton Polytechnic, now University of Brighton) and then Sussex University for her B.Ed. She returned to her native London in 1978 to begin her teaching career. Married with two sons, she worked part-time for a number of years and during this time took up writing fiction.
Lindy began writing stories as a child but her interest emerged more seriously when she reached her thirties. She became a member of a writing group and finished her first (unpublished) teenage novel. Back at work full-time, her career took off and in her forties she became Head of English. She continued to write and teach until, in 2010, she was diagnosed with the degenerative and terminal illness.
Struggling to cope with the gradual loss of her voice she began to write about her experiences. She joined a Memoir Writing Class which resulted in the completion of her book, The Voice in My Head is Perfect.
It is published by Cloister House Press and is priced £8.99. It can be ordered through her website www.lindyjones.co.uk or through Amazon. It is soon to be available as an audio book.
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