T J Dockree has lived in Cornwall since she was 18 months old. Her parents came to Cornwall on holiday in the 50s and 60s and moved here from Lancashire in the late 1960s.
She started writing her first novel, The Chart Makers Daughter: Timeline 67, in the 80s. Looking for inspiration, she was inspired by the shipwreck of the schooner Voorspoed and the rescue of its crew on Perranporth beach in 1901. The novel creates a fictional journey for a fictional crew, including a woman and girl escaping from Amsterdam, and their adventures with the Cornish residents they meet: Padraig the Irish railway worker who also cares for the pit ponies, Lad (still to be named!) the asthmatic son of a miner and a local archaeologist helping at the dig at St Pirans Oratory.
In November 2017, Tracey joined the international movement of writers for National Novel Writing Month, which became the catalyst for making her story a reality. She wrote her first ‘zero’ story draft for Timeline 67 and she has since drafted other novels most Novembers ever since: The Dream Walker, Bait, Mine The Light and Leviathan. She’s now editing all those zero drafts and hopes to publish The Chart Makers Daughter: Timeline 67 sometime during 2024/25.
Early writerly dabblings involved poetry, with her poem The Maiden winning first prize at Poetry Today – Beyond the Horizon in 1997. Since then, she has had several other poems published in collections with other poets.
Tracey loves encouraging others on their writing journey. She’s the lead cheerleader for other writers in Cornwall every November and regularly meets up with other writers in Cornwall throughout the rest of the year. In 2019, she set up Cornwall Writers and their short story project, which has resulted in three anthologies co-written with other Cornish writers:
Her day jobs are editor for Ethical Rebel magazine and ethical fashion and costume designer as Tracey Dockree. She is based in Truro in Cornwall.
