Meet the Author
Lorna Beedham spent all her childhood wanting to be a teacher. She ended up fulfilling that dream in 1987 when she qualified as a Primary School teacher. She taught in the Birmingham and surrounding areas and became a Headteacher in Rugby. She took opportunities to read poetry to the children especially those by Allan Ahlberg.
In 2002 she became a Primary School Adviser in Nottingham City and worked there for 11 years before deciding to become a foster carer in her home area. She and her husband did that for 7 years before Lorna took on a role as Shop Manager in a community hub her church established in the local town.
Once she decided to focus on her writing she set herself up as a dog-walker to keep her fit and healthy and to give a break from the time she spends writing. She enjoys both activities.
Background
Lorna Beedham has had a love of poetry since being read A.A. Milne’s Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young by her father when she was a young child. Her home had collections of classic poems she could dip into at her leisure. At Junior School she had an amazing teacher, Mr Journeaux, who would cover her class when her class teacher was away and who would read poetry to the class with such intonation that Lorna was spellbound. Matilda, The Pobble Who Had No Toes were two favourites.
Her own writing of poetry really began at the loss of her mother-in-law and the writing of a poem that was used in her funeral service. That led to the writing of poems for people when they lost someone significant.
During the Covid lockdown period Lorna began to write a variety of poems exploring different themes but all obviously Christian in nature and she began to wonder if she had the skills and capacity to write a complete book. So, in 2023, as she was recovering from an operation she decided to have a go and see if she had a book within her and then ascertain whether it was publishable.
She felt led to write on the theme of the fruit of the Spirit and after a year approached Instant Apostle (publishers) to see if the book had any interest. They decided it had something that made it unique and in January 2024 Lorna had the final product in her hand. A Piece of Orange was no longer a possibility but a reality.
December 2025 saw Lorna recording the book as an audio book which is available from Audible
Current Project
Before A Piece of Orange was complete Lorna felt she had the title and content for book two – Every Then and Now. Her attention was caught by the miracle stories in the Gospels. In the Gospels we follow Jesus but don’t stop and consider what the miracles meant for the people receiving them. She felt she would stay behind and record what the impact of the miracle might have been. She wanted to consider what life was like for the woman with constant bleeding for 12 years. What was it like to wake up and not have to wash bedclothes and to be able to have the purification bath every other woman had monthly after her period? What would those whose condition meant their only option was to beg do now that their defining characteristic was no longer there and they had no reason to beg?
Again, she had the cover design in her head before even writing a line of the book, confirmed by the artist drawing the template for her who had a butterfly land on her window with a broken left wing and a whole right one – the design Lorna had asked her to draw.
Instant Apostle has agreed to publish this book too so the hope is it will be available to purchase Summer/Autumn 2026 with an audiobook version being produced at the same time.