Ally Small

Mhara was born in Dundee, Scotland, famed for Jute, Jam and Journalism. She is the daughter and grand-daughter of Dundee jute “wallahs”. At a few months old Mhara’s family moved to Lahore, Pakistan and her first words were in Urdu not English; these being her earliest memories, she feels a cultural, spiritual connection to the Indian sub-continent. In 1972 the jute “wallah” and family moved to Juja, Kenya and Mhara was educated at a Del Monte owned school in Thika which was surrounded by Del Monte’s pineapple plantation. It was an idyllic life in post-colonial Kenya and provided inspiration for Mhara’s love of writing and story-telling from an early age. She returned to the UK to continue her education and life as a non-expatriate but boomeranged back to Africa to live and work in Kabwe, Zambia as a teaching assistant. Thereafter she was employed by the US Embassy in Douala, Cameroon teaching English. By the late 1980s Mhara was back in the UK working in London and Edinburgh in the PR and marketing industries. In 1994 Mhara won a nationwide short story writing competition and was awarded a trip to New York. She has had poems published in the British Anthology of Poems and The Wag-By-The-Way’s Hallowmas is the first in a series of tales inspired by her life in the rural, remote Scottish Borders whilst living in an old farmhouse.

Ally Small – inspired by books and comics in his early years, Ally has used pen, pencil and paint to unleash his imagination on various surfaces his whole life.