From struggle to strength: My journey to Dapple Grey Press

Buckle up, this is a long story...

When my twin daughters started school, I thought we were doing everything right. From Reception through Year 1, they went every day, happily learning their letters and sounds. We didn’t do much reading at home — our 30-minute commute each way made evenings a blur of dinner, baths, and bedtime — but I could see they were picking up on things.

Sometimes they’d sound out “C-A-T”… and then, on the next page, barely 10 centimetres away, have to sound it out again. There were the usual early mix-ups — b and d, n and h — but the teachers reassured me that it was all part of the learning process.

I believed them. Many neurotypical children exhibit similar tendencies when learning, so teachers were optimistic that these minor issues would resolve over time.

Then came the pandemic.

Like millions of parents, I suddenly found myself running a makeshift classroom in the kitchen. We had a chalkboard, craft projects, and a pair of laptops. But sitting beside my girls day after day, I began to see something I hadn’t before: the frustration. The exhaustion. The way words seemed to slip through their fingers, no matter how hard they tried.

I started keeping notes — backwards letters, confusion between words and numbers, and short-term memory lapses. More frustration. More tears.

Then one day, I hurled the worksheets in the bin and decided to do something radical: stop forcing them to read, and start learning differently.

We learned outdoors. We talked, built, and explored history, maths, and science and nature — without the pressure of phonics standing in the way.

When they finally returned to school in Year 2, I raised my concerns again. I discovered that they couldn’t be assessed until after their seventh birthday. I booked the appointments immediately after their birthday.

I was almost certain one twin was dyslexic and the other “just a bit behind.” I was wrong — the “bit behind” one was actually masking, and her dyslexia was slightly more pronounced.

Their assessments told an interesting story: both scored low in reading and phoneme awareness, but they were off the charts for verbal reasoning, logic, vocabulary, and problem-solving. Their assessor was kind and hopeful — with early intervention and the right supports, she said, they could absolutely close the gap. And be set up for academic success.

And so began two years of specialist tutoring — hours of work, countless books, and a fair bit of frustration (and a fair bit of money too). Along the way, one of my daughters was also diagnosed with ADHD — not the hyperactive type, but the dreamy, wandering off to dance with the faeries kind. The kind where reading one sentence sparks a dozen side quests of imagination.

The same flavour of ADHD I’d later learn I had myself.

By Year 5, we’d moved to a new area and a new school. The girls started that year basically illiterate, beyond a few simple words. But then came their English teacher — the amazing Mrs Dickens (you couldn’t come up with a better name for an English lead).

She worked magic. With after-school reading booster sessions, in-class support, and endless patience, my girls were reading confidently by the end of Year 5.

By Year 6, they’d passed their SATs. With a little extra support, as recommended in their assessments, they didn’t just meet expectations — they exceeded them.

Now, in Year 7, my twins are thriving. They’re in the top sets for most of their subjects, managing their homework independently, and — most importantly — reading for pleasure.

Their journey taught me something powerful: dyslexia and ADHD are not barriers to success. They’re simply different ways of processing the world — often with creativity, empathy, and insight that no test can measure.

A couple of years ago, I was already working with Dapple Grey Press, who had published my debut novel The Chrysalis Project and acquired rights to my Elderberry & Jones Mysteries. When the opportunity arose to purchase the company, I saw it as more than a business decision — I saw a way to turn our family’s story into a mission.

And do something really cool.

Dapple Grey Press needed a fresh start and a clear purpose. I provided the cash infusion and took ownership, with the shared intention to rebrand and refocus the press around something deeply personal: creating books for children like mine — bright, curious, imaginative readers who simply need stories written their way.

Because every child deserves stories that feel possible — stories that meet them where they are and help them see how capable they already are.

In short: this isn’t just our story. It’s the story of every family who’s sat beside a struggling reader and hoped for the day the words finally click. That day will come — and when it does, it’s pure magic.