Claire Dyer

ALLi Author Member

Location: United Kingdom (the)

Genres: Commercial Fiction, Thriller, Literary Fiction, General Fiction, Womens Fiction, Other Poetry, Romance

Skills: Performance/Spoken Word, Press/Media Interview, Reading/Literary Event, Speaking Engagement/Lecture, Writing Workshop

Claire Dyer’s poetry collections are published by Two Rivers Press, her novels by Quercus, The Dome Press, Matador and Pegasus. Her latest novel is 'What We Thought We Knew' and her fourth collection, 'The Adjustments' was published by Two Rivers Press in April 2024. She teaches creative writing, runs Fresh Eyes, an editorial and critiquing service, and is Poetry Consultant to the Council of the SWWJ. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Claire Dyer's books

The Significant Others of Odie May

Any one of them could have murdered her... but who did?

On the night Odie May and her married lover are due to celebrate him leaving his wife, Odie goes out to buy a bottle of his favourite wine and, on her way home, is murdered by a woman in a lime green coat.

The next thing Odie knows is that she’s in a waiting room and there’s a man called Carl Draper saying he’s her Initial Contact. He is carrying a clipboard and invites her into an interview room.

Over the course of her interview, Carl and Odie track back to the significant others in her life to date to try and work out where she’s gone wrong, who might have killed her, and why.

In the meantime, Carl also shows Odie what’s happening in the life she’s left behind as her mother and her lover, Michael, learn of her death and manage the tricky days that follow it.

But nothing is as simple as it seems. Although Carl has it in his power to return Odie to the moment before she was killed, this comes at a price she may not be able to pay.

What We Thought We Knew

Four children, three marriages, two secrets, and one unfathomable tragedy: the families at numbers two, four and six Penwood Heights are connected by work, friendship, the loss of a child and a secret truth which has sat in the bedrock of their lives for years.
In the centre of this tight-knit group is Faith, who believes her job is to act as a paperweight, keeping them all safe. And she does this until someone from her past reappears and threatens to sabotage everything.
And, as the pieces fall, these families, these friends, realise that what they thought they knew about one another was nothing more than make-believe. They also discover that trust is illusory and for Faith, at least, that keeping other people's secrets can be more dangerous than keeping our own.

Yield

Three definitions of the word Yield give meaning to the odyssey undergone in Claire Dyer’s third collection: a journey which sees a son become a daughter, and a mother a poet for both of them.

Charting these transitions, the poems take us through territories known and familiar – landscapes of childhood, family and home – into further regions where inner lives alter, outer ones are reimagined.

The Adjustments

In The Adjustments, Claire Dyer’s fourth collection with Two Rivers Press, the poet explores the vagaries of time and experience. As a narrative in reverse, her book scrutinises the fine tunings of life – from what’s expected to what happens – and the associated search for equilibrium in a world that’s constantly changing.

Covering the main themes of loss, gain, identity and relationships, the poems travel backwards from the challenges of later life to the hopes and fears of youth, and act as testament and interrogation, laying bare the quest for and acceptance of the adjustments we make and that ultimately define us.

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