WHO WE ARE
Hope & Anchor is three writers: Peggy Riley, Sarah Leipciger and Joanna Quinn. We met on a creative writing course nearly twenty years ago. We know from experience that writing requires both encouragement (hope!) and support (an anchor!) so founded Hope & Anchor to help our fellow writers improve their skills and stay motivated.
Peggy Riley is a writer, playwright, and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Canterbury Christ Church University. She has run writing workshops for the past 25 years in schools, libraries, festivals and prisons. She was a writer-on-attachment at Soho Theatre and her plays were produced off-West End, on tour, and site-specifically in such places as historic churches and a former internment camp. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Costa Short Story Award. She has written for Elle, The Big Issue, The Wall Street Journal and BBC Radio Kent. Her first novel, Amity & Sorrow, was published in the UK, US and in Europe. Most recently, her essay 'A Heartbeat' was published in a new anthology, The Best Most Awful Job. She is a Yaddo fellow, and a recipient of a Grant for the Arts from Arts Council England. Originally from Los Angeles and the Mojave, she lives in Kent. www.peggyriley.com
Sarah Leipciger is a Canadian novelist living and teaching in the UK. She has published three novels, the most recent being Moon Road, which came out in 2024 in the UK and North America, and was flagged in the Sunday Times as: 'if Elizabeth Strout drove a pick-up truck'. Her second novel, Coming Up for Air, longlisted for the Historical Writer’s Association prize, will be hitting the stage as an opera with the Leipzig Opera House’s 2026 season. Sarah's short fiction has been shortlisted for prestigious awards including the Bridport Prize and Fish Prize, and she has contributed creative non-fiction to national newspapers including The Guardian and the Toronto Star. She was a facilitator of creative writing workshops in London prisons for two decades, and has been working as a tutor at City Lit since 2019. She is Associate Lecturer with the MA in Creative Writing at both Birkbeck and Goldsmiths universities.
Joanna Quinn lives in Dorset. Her first novel The Whalebone Theatre was published in 2022 and was a bestseller in the UK and the US. It was a 'Read With Jenna' pick and was featured in HM Queen Camilla's book club The Reading Room. It was shortlisted for Best Debut Fiction at the British Book Awards, The Authors' Club Best First Novel award, The Society of Authors McKitterick Prize and The Winston Graham Prize. It has been translated into 14 languages and optioned for television. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for The White Review Prize, the Bridport Prize, the Bristol Short Story Prize, and published by Comma Press. Joanna has a background in journalism and communications, and has written for The Times and The Guardian. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Goldsmiths University, has run workshops at Bournemouth Arts University, and led writing retreats in Spain. https://www.joanna-quinn.com/