My fiction writing (T.M. Parris) / My non fiction writing (Tracey Hill)

I’ve always been interested in writing and am proud to be an independent author, having first hit the “Publish” button on my 50th birthday!

I was born near Manchester in the UK, and grew up in the Midlands. After graduating from Oxford with a history degree, I travelled for a few years and earned a living teaching English in Budapest and Tokyo. My first career was in market research, during which I travelled to numerous countries and was lucky enough to enjoy a three-month posting in Hong Kong which involved visiting many of the surrounding countries. I also took a sabbatical from work for a road trip in the USA, and another to travel by train from Brighton, on the south coast of the UK, through Russia and Mongolia to Beijing and around China to Tibet and Nepal.

In 2008 I joined the Labour Party and started actively campaigning in politics. I first stood for election in 2011, and was elected as a city councillor in Brighton and Hove in 2015. I was re-elected in 2019 and stepped down in 2021 out of a need to relocate. I currently live in Belper, a lively market town near the Peak District National Park in the centre of England.

I started devoting serious time to writing around 2011, and published my first novel, Reborn, in 2020, under the pen name T.M. Parris. Reborn is the first in a series of political spy thrillers set in different parts of the world. Currently there are five in the series, with a sixth due for release in late 2022.

Also due out in 2022 is my first non fiction book, We’re Not All the Same, published under my real name, Tracey Hill. In this short book I draw on my experience of politics and explore the negative stereotypes of politicians and the damage caused when they are used universally.

All my writing is inspired out of a passion for three things:

People, and how they think and feel and act in all their contradictory complexity.

Places: In my fiction I use vivid international settings and try to depict the wonder of remote extremes and exotic cities. The huge variation in nature and cultures across the globe will never cease to fascinate me. My non fiction stems from local politics, and an appreciation of how those who are deeply embedded in their neighbourhoods and communities do so much to shape a place and make it unique.

Politics: How we identify ourselves as societies, how we make collective decisions, and the moral dilemmas that inevitably ensue are important elements in all my writing.