I'm Manchester's 'Queen of Crime' who learned to read and write at 39 and has now sold 100k books

ManchesterWorld

A best-selling author who learned to read and write aged 39 while working as a cleaner has written 30 books and sold more than 100,000 copies.  Karen Woods, now 54, would regularly skip school and left aged 15 when she became pregnant. It wasn't until she was offered a promotion which required her to write emails she decided to take an adult literacy course.  Brave Karen passed - and is now a best-selling crime author signed to HarperNorth, a branch of Harper Collins, and has even written sold-out theatre shows. The author, dubbed the “Manchester’s Queen of Crime”, credits reading and writing with changing her life and says a TV deal may be in the works.

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:05 My name's Karen Woods, and I'm hailed as the Northern Martina

00:09 Cole.

00:10 At the age 39, I struggled with reading and writing.

00:14 And through my employer, I attended an adult literacy

00:17 course.

00:18 That course changed my life.

00:19 Not only did I come away from there

00:22 with being able to read and write,

00:24 I come away with a dream, a dream of becoming an author.

00:27 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:31 Broken Youth was my first novel, and it

00:33 was a bestseller on Amazon.

00:35 Absolutely loved it.

00:36 To date, I have 27 novels that I've penned.

00:40 I've signed a book deal with Harper North,

00:43 and I'm known as the Manchester Queen of Crime.

00:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:52 I love writing.

00:53 It's a hobby for me.

00:55 I tell stories that happen behind everybody's doors,

00:58 characters we can identify with, people

01:00 we see on the street every day.

01:02 People ask me how I write.

01:05 Do I have a storyboard?

01:06 Do I plan all my stories?

01:08 And the answer is no.

01:10 I get my laptop from upstairs.

01:12 I plonk myself on the sofa.

01:15 The TV's on.

01:16 Family is just doing what they do around me.

01:19 And I just go into this world where all these characters

01:22 come to life.

01:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:29 All these words that I have now, I never had when I was 39.

01:33 And I do believe words have power,

01:36 because since I found my voice, I

01:38 speak for a nation of women, strong women,

01:41 be a success, buy our own dresses.

01:44 We're women who have determination.

01:46 We're women of substance.

01:48 And I'm here to put us all on the map.

01:50 (upbeat music)

01:53 (upbeat music)

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