Isobel Blackthorn

Isobel Blackthorn is a prolific Australian novelist. She writes both contemporary/literary, thrillers and dark fiction. She is the author of Asylum (2015), The Drago Tree (2015 and in Spanish translation 2017) and A Perfect Square (2016), and the short story collection All Because of You (2016, 2012). Her cosy crime novel, La Mareta, will be released by Odyssey Books in April 2018. Her dark psychological thriller, The Cabin Sessions, was released by HellBoundBooks in October 2017. Her short story, ‘Ignominy’ appears in Shopping List 2 (HellBound Books, 2017). A dark comedy thriller, The Legacy of Old Gran Parks, will be released by HellBound Books, 6 April 2018.

Isobel is at work on another two works of dark fiction, one set in Las Vegas, the other, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain.

Isobel’s writing has appeared in journals and websites around the world, including Paranoia Magazine, Mused Literary Review, Backhand Stories, Fictive Dream and On Line Opinion.

Isobel’s interests are many and varied. A humanitarian and campaigner for social justice, in 1999 Isobel founded the internationally acclaimed Ghana Link, uniting two high schools, one a relatively privileged state school located in the heart of England, the other a materially impoverished school in a remote part of the Upper Volta region of Ghana, West Africa.

Isobel has a background in Western Esotericism and she’s a qualified Astrologer. She holds a PhD from the University of Western Sydney, for her research on the works of Theosophist Alice A. Bailey, the ‘Mother of the New Age.’ After working as a teacher, market trader, and PA to a literary agent, she arrived at writing in her forties, and her stories are as diverse and intriguing as her life has been.

Isobel performs her literary works at events in a range of settings, gives workshops in creative writing, and writes book reviews. Her reviews have appeared in Shiny New Books, Sisters in Crime, Australian Women Writers, Trip Fiction and Newtown Review of Books. She talks regularly about books and writing on radio, in Australia, and on occasion in the UK and USA and Canary Islands.

British by birth, Isobel entered this world in Farnborough, Kent, as Yvonne Margaret Grimble. She has since been Yvonne Rodgers, before changing her name completely in 1996 to Isobel Schofield. After a number of years as Isobel Wightman, she is now very happily and permanently Isobel Blackthorn. Isobel has lived in England, Australia, Spain and the Canary Islands. She now lives on Australia’s southern coast with her cat, Psyche. She is currently at work on her first comedy horror novel.