Marion is married to Michael, has two sons with partners and two grandchildren. She is a former secondary school English teacher and an English language adviser to an international geological consultancy firm. She has a degree in English Language and Literature from Hull University and gained an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, where she was tutored by Andrew Motion and Jo Shapcott.
 
She began sending poems off for possible publication in 2000, after an Arvon course for teachers, led by a supportive and encouraging Don Paterson. She has since been published in a wide range of magazines, including The North, MsLexia, Ambit, Iota, Dream Catcher, The Dawntreader and Eye Flash Poetry and in Glimmer (anthology, Cinnamon Press). She has two poetry collections published – The Threshold and Between Continents.
 
Marion’s poems commonly explore specific themes, such as her love of the natural world, particularly coastlines and rivers, but it is perhaps ‘transitions’, whether they be in life or across cultures and places, that mark out the core of her work. Reflections from childhood memories contrast with adult experiences from different worlds: fifteen years of parallel lives in rural Lincolnshire and Houston, Texas, along with spells in Norway, Abu Dhabi and Oman.
 
Further poems stem from Marion suffering encephalitis in 2011, which made a significant impact on her own and her family’s lives. She lost a wide vocabulary overnight, most significantly names – of people, places, book titles, poets, plays, etc – which was particularly devastating for an English teacher. Family, friends and the Louth Poetry Group all gave great support and encouragement and got her back writing, along with the confidence and motivation to send poems for publication and to put collections together.
 

Edward Hopper said, ‘If I could say it in words, I wouldn’t need to paint.’ Marion says it in finely chosen words, pressed to the truth of a moment, an encounter, an urban or rural scene. Between Continents is a diverse collection from a gifted poet.

John Scarborough, Louth poet