Perseverance pays off for Exeter alumna

Brought up in North London, she left school at the age of 16. A series of different jobs followed including work in a tea bag factory, temping in offices, modelling at art classes and even making a brief appearance in a Derek Jarman film. She also worked as a physiotherapy assistant, illustrator, feature-writer, film-reviewer and spent a time in the animation industry.

Later Sheena, with her husband and young family swapped urban London for rural Devon. There she kept chickens, milked goats, ran a catering business and sold vintage clothing.

During this time Sheena decided she would like to pursue the education she had missed out on previously – but it had to be practical enough to fit it in with her family.  

“I had to do an access course, at Okehampton, to be considered for admission; Exeter was the nearest university, so I applied and was accepted,” she said. “If I'd been refused, I would have had to forget higher education altogether; it would have been impossible for me to make the journey anywhere else.

“For a while I thought I'd taken on too much. There was a daily round trip of 80 miles in a series of unreliable old bangers; at home there was my family to think of; and of course, there was my degree! In spite of the excellent access course I'd taken, I felt totally unprepared.”

Sheena not only persevered but also began writing Cuckoo – described as a dark and funny story of a young person coming to terms with a truly terrible legacy.

She explained: “It's hard to say why it started or what inspired it. The protagonist's voice was in my head and just wouldn't shut up until the story was told...all these years on, it still hasn't stopped, which is why the story continues!”

Sheena graduated from Exeter in 1997 and since then has worked further on Cuckoo, until its publication last year under her childhood name of S.D.Breen.

In the meantime she qualified as a teacher, which led to a position as writer-in residence in a prison. There she taught on a successful university access course, various creative-writing projects with inmates and an innovative course using literature to help reduce re-offending. Sheena also supervised the inmates' magazine and managed the Media Centre, which housed the prison radio-station.

Ten years ago she and her family moved to Ireland where she is now concentrating on writing sequels to Cuckoo.