Born in London and raised mostly in Yorkshire, I have British and Nigerian* heritage, so of course, I love everything Scandinavian (not just The Killing and The Bridge, but Danish cakes too). I also like jazz, blues, big cities, deep countryside and hares. (If the hares happen to be boxing, it’s the icing on the cake.)

I came to writing via a circuitous route. Or rather, my writing was hijacked by other careers along the way, beginning with a stint as a hairdresser in London’s West End. A science degree naturally followed from that (!), then postgraduate studies, which led to work in the fields of biomedical and environmental research. I now divide my time between editing scientific publications and writing fiction. The two marry well.

My first book was Cloudscapes over the Lune, a collaboration with Mary Sylvia Winter, Melissa Bailey, Sarah Dobbs and Kay Douglas to raise money for two children’s charities.

In 2014, Curiosity Quills published Gears of Brass, a steampunk anthology featuring my story ‘The Archive Room’.

The Snowflakes anthology came out in 2015, published by Bridge House Publishing and featuring my story ‘Undertow’.

Awards

I’m delighted to have won a Northern Writers’ Award to support the development of my new short story collection.

The first draft of The House of Ash was shortlisted for the Commonword Children’s Diversity Writing Prize 2012, run in association with Puffin Books and RCW Literary Agency. This book is now in final edits.

• Unbound short story competition, 2016: runner up
• Galley Beggar Press short story prize, 2016: special mention
• Fish Publishing short story contest, 2016/17: longlisted
• Bath Flash Fiction Award 2017: longlisted (‘Boiled Wool’ to be published in their anthology, late 2017)
• Wells Festival of Literature short story competition, 2017: shortlisted

(* Weze is pronounced way-zay)

You can contact me at: clare.weze@gmail.com

Site photography by Peter Easterby