About

TRACEY GEMMELL is a British writer living in Exmoor National Park after spending more than thirty years in the USA. She is the author of two novels: More or Less Annie and Dunster’s Calling, a runner up in the 2016 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Competition, and she received an honourable mention for her short story ‘Scooby-Doo and Hobnobs’ in the Jade Ring Contest, 2018. She was a guest judge for the Yeovil Community Arts Association Children’s Short Story Competition in 2021 and is currently working on her third novel, Life Like Lavender.

As a speech-language pathologist Tracey conducted research in autism at The Yale Child Study Center, worked in special education programs, and provided acute care therapy for acquired communication disorders in hospitals. She also volunteered with refugee programs focused on teaching English. Tracey has been featured on BBC Somerset Radio and South Devon Radio. Her social media gets way more hits when she posts about her rescue dog. Posts about her husband and two adult children, not so much.

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The making of me…

I grew up in a chocolate-box village in Hertfordshire, England (my excuse for life as a chocoholic) but I read too many books about other places to appreciate it. I knew by the age of seven I wasn’t the type to stay in one place for long. I’d watch the planes fly over my house and make up stories about the people on them.

My dad loved to drive. I mean REALLY loved to drive. I’d seen a lot of Europe by the time I left the nest, mostly from the backseat of Dad’s car over the top of Mum’s beehive hairdo. Dad liked driving, not stopping—the beginnings of my rolling stone existence, maybe?
Horses introduced me to Exmoor National Park, a stunningly beautiful corner of England, and it was love at first sight. Those same horses also became my passport to the world. A certified riding instructor, my skills with a pitchfork and dressage saddle led to many foreign adventures in Europe, New Zealand and the United States. I eventually galloped right into the arms of my American-born husband. He didn’t like horses. Or chocolate.

But we had something in common: he wasn’t very good at staying in one place either. We bounced from coast to coast and everywhere in between during my more than thirty years in the USA. When not packing up houses, I found the time to raise two children, study linguistics, receive a Master of Science degree in speech-language pathology, conduct autism research, and work in schools and hospitals, all while feeding my reading obsession.

From wanderlust to hiraeth…

Then came an opportunity to leave all that behind (except the wife, mother, and reading obsession bit) to write full-time. I love writing as much as I love horses, gardening, Exmoor and packing a suitcase to head off somewhere new. But in all my travels, from the tip of South America to Provence, from Bora Bora to the Rocky Mountains, I’ve never felt as connected to a place as I do Exmoor. Maybe it was the turmoil of recent years, but wanderlust turned to a crippling case of hiraeth – a Celtic word denoting a yearning for home, with a sense of loss. I just couldn’t fit myself into the USA anymore.

I returned home to Exmoor during the pandemic, my husband and rescue dog in tow. You can read about how much fun I had relocating on my blog. (Spoiler alert: it was chaos!) All that aside, feeling home again was worth all the madness. Now my time is consumed with rejuvenating a delightfully rambunctious, rambling garden of streams and ponds, out-of-control climbing roses and a prolifically fruiting orchard. For the first time in a long time, I feel settled.

This doesn’t mean my wanderlust has abated. I still have a lot of world to see. Location factors heavily in my reading and writing and I relate to characters who seek adventure, even as they long for home, or long to escape from home, or finally find home.
I’m lucky to now live where I sleep the best and breathe the deepest. Maybe I had to leave home to appreciate home. But no matter where I am, I think about other places, just like that little girl who watched the planes fly overhead. If this is you too, bon voyage!