Tilly Culme-Seymour
Tilly Culme-Seymour is an English author and teacher. Her book, ISLAND SUMMERS; MEMORIES OF A NORWEGIAN CHILDHOOD (Bloomsbury, 2013), weaves the story of three generations of strong women against the backdrop of the starkly beautiful Norwegian south. In 1947, Tilly’s grandmother Mormor (translated as ‘mother’s mother’) purchased an island – Småhølmene – in exchange for a mink coat. She built a wooden cabin and devoted three months of each year to wilderness living – a tradition the family has upheld ever since. The narrative seams together a portrait of island life through the depiction of the impulsive, eccentric Mormor, and the inheritors of her intrepid legacy.
Island Summers celebrates the treasuring of family traditions, relationships between siblings, cousins, parents and grandparents, the careful passing on of pastimes from one generation to the next and our love of nature and home-made food. It was described by the author Donald Sturrock as ‘utterly captivating…reminiscent at times of Roald Dahl’s BOY; ‘a prose poem to a private idyll’ (The Times); and ‘a paean to simple pleasures’ (Harper’s Bizaar). Country Life wrote of ‘how it…captures all of our timeless childhood summers’.
Though still drawn to island life, Tilly is currently based in West London. Her time teaching has given her a thirst to write some top-notch Detective Fiction.