Back in 1986 I took my first faltering steps as a writer and enrolled on a creative writing course at a local college. As my interest developed, I took a number of residential courses at The Arvon Foundation under the guidance of such wonderful tutors such as Willy Russell, Anthony Minghella and Peter Flannery.
At that time, I mainly wrote short stories and poetry but my real love was theatre and it became clear that the more I wrote, the more I found myself drawn to writing dialogue. Playwriting was where I really wanted to focus my energy and by the mid-1990s I felt ready to put my words into action.
With heart in mouth I put on my first play, Monkey Business, which ran for four nights during September of that year. To my delight, the play was very well received and played to full houses every night – I have been writing non-stop since.
I formed the Sylvia Walker Players the following year and the company has performed the premiere of each of my subsequent plays for the past fifteen years. Many dramatic societies around the UK now perform them in their local theatres, tailoring them to suit their own cast members, regional dialects and locations.
All the plays are two-act comedies or comedy dramas and are primarily intended for performance by amateur dramatic societies. Such organisations invariably have limited funds so I try to keep costs down by creating plays set in the present time, using simple sets and inexpensive effects and costumes – never a crinoline in sight!
As well as writing plays, I am a founder member of Writers Reign, a writing group which has been in existence more than twenty years and in which I organise an annual story writing competition.
I was also involved in the production of local history books for The Living Memories Society.
Awards
- Winner, National Play Writing Competition, English Drama Association
- Two times runner-up, the National Association of Writers Competition
“Laugh-a-minute-entertainment.”
“Queen of the one-liners.”
“…an inexhaustible flow of one-liners that any comedy actor would die for”
“…tender and touching… giving the characters a three-dimensional quality”
Sylvia Walker : Playwright 