Sally Quilford was born in Pontypool, South Wales, and moved to Derbyshire in 1977. Having left school with no qualifications, she has been employed as a shop assistant, factory worker and cleaner. She married in 1982, and was a stay at home mum for the next 12 years. In 1994, after something of an epiphany, Sally decided to return to education. It wasn't the first time she tried it, but it was the first time she ever stuck to it. Since then, Sally has gained a 2.1 honours degree in Humanities and Literature with the Open University as well as more paper qualifications from more courses than she's had hot dinners. She also started doing voluntary work, spending some time at Chesterfield Law Centre, and the local Citizens Advice Bureau. Ill-health led to her having to curtail her voluntary activities.

It was around 1994 that Sally also started writing, having thought about it for a long time without picking up a pen. Two poems were published in small press magazines, whilst others hit the dizzy heights of being hailed as 'literary genius' by publishers who later tried to part Sally from her hard earned cash. For the next few years, she merely played at being a writer, writing mainly fanfiction. Her first few non-fanfiction stories were sent out and very swiftly returned.

It was in 2002-3 that Sally joined the BBC's Get Writing site. This was to be a turning point in her writing career. For the first time Sally met other writers, who took her dreams seriously (and a few who didn't, but they didn't really count). Those writers who supported her efforts are now amongst her closest friends. From then on, Sally started getting more work published, including one of the first stories she ever wrote, Darling Stefan, which was published by Bewrite.net in their anthology, The Creature and the Rose. She also had stories published on various websites and ezines. Further successes with Accent Press's Sexy Shorts series of charity anthologies followed. Her first 'paid' success was with Yours magazine for her story, Clarence, which still holds a special place in her heart.

In 2007, Sally decided she was no longer going to give work away for free, unless for charity. She earned £10 that year. But what that did was focus her mind on producing work that editors would want to buy. Things have improved since then, though she is still a long way from owning the Georgian Manor to which she aspires.

Sally has presented a workshop at Wigan Literary Festival, and also an online workshop on Character Building, which proved very popular.

In 2008, Sally was invited to become a regular columnist in Writers Forum magazine, with a column based on her popular competition calendar.

In late 2009, Sally had her first novella, The Secret of Helena's Bay, accepted by My Weekly for their Pocket Novel series. She was also invited to judge Cally Taylor's Heaven Can Wait short story competition.

Sally's plans for the future are to write more pocket novels, and work her way to writing a viable, and commercial, full length novel.

Sally is available for presentations and workshops.