Accidental author
May 4, 2026
My journey to becoming an author isn’t a conventional one, in fact I’d go so far as to call myself
Sustainability novice to award winning – catchy headline right? The real story is full of twists and turns, but it’s a journey I’m really proud of and I hope will show others that you don’t always need to be an expert to make a difference and take positive actions.
In 2019 I had a conversation with my sister, Lisa, which changed everything for me. She was feeling frustrated when trying to shop sustainably for ‘plastic free July’ and felt that she was having to go to multiple places to source good sustainable products. That’s when I had my lightbulb moment! ‘I could do that’ was my thinking, despite having no real business experience and not a lot of sustainability knowledge. Previously I had been an early years teacher and had experience of running and managing pre-schools, so I felt that I had some transferable skills! I just had a gut feeling that I needed to do something and wanted to help other people like me, to find good products without judgement. I started by just trying and testing products, trying to understand what worked, what were good swaps, some I got wrong but lots I got right and found some incredible suppliers. I started selling at fairs and small markets before setting up my website in February 2020, the following month we headed in to lockdown and it was a challenging time for a very new business, and I had to work out how to run it just online. We sent a lot of care packages during that time and were really lucky to be able to continue to grow.
As we headed back out into the real world, I tried a local pop up shop which was run as a collective – and this completely changed my outlook on retail, so that when the opportunity came up to have my own retail shop in my local town, Cirencester, I grabbed it! I ran the shop for about 3 years, building on what I was offering, expanding into refills and preloved clothing as well as my range of gifts and everyday items. During Covid, I had started working with Anna Stead a local illustrator, on my first children’s book ‘Away’, a gorgeous book about waste in the environment, set in the woodland and featuring our woodland characters and I published it in 2021 at the same time as opening my shop. I rushed getting it printed and ready as I had dedicated it to my lovely Mum, Mary who sadly had a terminal brain tumour and I really wanted her to see it before she died, which I did and I’m really grateful for being able to make this happen. The shop was such a lovely space and I continued to work there as well as working on other new books, like my second book ‘Oceans Away’ and then my third book ‘Away at Christmas’ but at the same time my Stepdad Jim died in 2022 and my brother Paul unexpectedly also died from a Glioblastoma brain tumour in 2023 (coincidentally the same as my Mum) and dealing with bereavement whilst running a shop, a business and writing and creating my books, became a little overwhelming. It was then that I wrote my child bereavement book ‘About Hedgehog’ designed to support little ones (3-11 yrs) with bereavement, it was a way of processing my own grief and really helped me, knowing that I could do something to help other people, especially children, at the most difficult of times. This was the first time I had created a book about something other than sustainability, but I took care to make it in the same way as the others, using FSC certified, 100% recycled carbon balanced paper which is certified by the World Land Trust and without plastic lamination. I realised then, that I could create other books on a range of topics, whilst still maintaining my commitment to printing them as sustainably as possible.
In February 2025 I closed my physical retail shop, to give myself the time to work on my books and to work on the business, which I’ve been transitioning from an everyday eco shop to one focused on children, families and education. I wanted to align the business with the books and show how products can be made sustainably. I’ve been really lucky to work with great people on the books, from Anna who illustrates them, to Tash who designs them and to Andy who prints them, working to my sustainable requirements, all done locally in Gloucestershire. I aim to show that taking sustainable actions in your business, can be done, is welcomed by customers and that you don’t necessarily need expertise in sustainability to run a sustainable business! Along my business journey, I have done a lot of learning and I’m really grateful to the team at Small Business Britain who have provided free courses, where I’ve been able to learn more about sustainable practices and connect with others.
Part of what I do now is to help educate children about purposeful topics, such as waste in the environment and get them thinking about how we can do something about this, child bereavement or with my new book ‘Mine’, about sharing. I offer workshops and book readings at events/schools/settings. Plus I run workshops for adults, like my reusable cracker making workshops, which aim to show that making simple swaps can be a really great change. I also run a number of campaigns working in partnership with businesses to gift books to charities and good causes, raising awareness of sustainability as well as offering educational resources on different topics.
Winning awards has been a part of my business journey and I’m really grateful to have received a number of awards as recognition for the work that I’m doing within sustainability, it’s been quite the journey to get here, but I’m really proud of all I’ve achieved so far and proof that you can be a novice and still succeed!
Some of my biggest wins in terms of sustainability have come from the smallest of changes:
If you’re interested in booking us for a workshop or event, or would like to work with us on our book gifting campaigns or business partnerships then simply get in touch: info@eco-able.co.uk or I’m always happy to chat about sustainability, so get in touch if you’re looking for tips or advice.
Dani
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