enchanters. If they could achieve their dreams, then surely I could too.” However, after getting an official diagnosis at 12 years old, self-doubt started to creep in. She says “I remember the doctor’s serious tone as he pronounced the unfamiliar, medical word ‘dyslexia’. The first thing I did when I got home was google ‘authors with dyslexia’. I couldn’t find any modern authors with dyslexia. “I remember thinking that maybe being dyslexic meant that I couldn’t be an author… Maybe being dyslexic means I’m stupid. Officially, medically stupid. But I was already hooked on stories, I couldn’t stop the make-believe worlds in my head; I didn’t stop writing. I’m troubled that, had I been diagnosed at a younger age, it may have scared me off stories for life. “From an adult’s perspective, I see the advantages of identifying children with dyslexia so they can be given the extra help from their schools, however as a child I felt labelled and isolated. I was academic and ambitious and I just wanted to be treated like everyone else. I didn’t know any other children or adults who were dyslexic.” Dyslexia can affect people in different ways, and for Eve it sometimes manifests itself as a state of temporary memory loss, like staring at a word she saw the day before and noting it has the same letters in it, but still feeling like she has never seen it before. “As you can imagine, this can be frustrating, disorientating and rather frightening! I’ve learnt not to worry too much. I find that my dyslexia is more pronounced when I’m stressed or tired.” Eve has learned to read through natural association, because her brain does not focus on every single word she sees, so she fills in the gaps based on the context of the text. She will stumble if reading a book that has unusual word choices, having to slow down a lot more. That is why Eve finds it comforting to read authors she knows well, because “their sentence structure or word choice is easier to predict. When I start reading a new author, or a more archaic classic, it will take me a while to assimilate to the authors’ voice.” Having a visual memory, Eve often sees words as objects, rather than its component parts: “I recognise words through their shape and length. If I’m following a map, I’ll remember that I need to find the road with a short name beginning with TH, ending with HAM – so if I’m faced with two roads both with short names TH---HAM then I’m in trouble! Interestingly, I have a very good sense of direction, so perhaps my brain is compensating for my lack of sign reading! “I’m not a huge fan of modern technology – I still write my diary by hand – but spell check and the tool to look up word definitions is a lifesaver! Even if I spell a word correctly, it might be in the wrong context, but I won’t be able to
18 PEN&INC.
see the difference. I think there is also a psychological factor at play – because I know I am bad at reading; I will often skim over words and won’t pause to break them down because I know it will take too long.” During her years in school and university, Eve tried to ignore her dyslexia. Her best teachers did not focus on her spelling, encouraging her ideas and creativity instead. She says “Being dyslexic didn’t stop me from being an A* student and I left sixth form with the top prize for English; I graduated university with a First in English and a special award for contributing to the Arts. I don’t add this information to show off – I just want to demonstrate that being dyslexic doesn’t stop you being academically smart.”
Eve went on to become an award- winning children’s book publicist, working
at Simon and Schuster for five-and-a-half years before launching her own freelance PR consultancy, EWM PR, in 2023: “It sounds cheesy but I love supporting lots of different publishers – I feel gratified that my skills in securing press, coaching authors to deliver events and organising events (I love a schedule!) can help bring more books to children and help foster a lifelong love of reading.”
She is also chair of the Publishers’ Publicity Circle, an association that enables book publicists from publishing houses and freelance PR agencies to gather and share information on a regular basis. PPC also run a yearly mentorship scheme and host quarterly awards for their members, among many other activities. A career in publishing was quite beneficial to Eve as an author. It gave her
Autumn-Winter 2025
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