Aberystwyth’s Emma Charlton has released her debut novel.

The 52-year-old writer and Marketing Director grew up in Aberystwyth, where her love of storytelling began.

Educated at Penglais and Coleg Ceredigion, she credits much of her early enjoyment of writing to English teacher, Mr Chadwick, who consistently encouraged her creative writing.

She studied business at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, followed later by a CIM Professional Marketing qualification, and her career has always sat firmly in the creative world of marketing, combining research, writing and storytelling across a wide range of sectors.

Her professional career started at the BBC in Cardiff, working on the Radio Times magazine, before moving to London to work in the Radio Frequency Section.

She went on to work for a national children’s charity and was seconded with the Chief Executive to DfEE to work on the social exclusion policy to reintegrate young people back into education.

She’s also worked for the Cambridge Corn Exchange, a fashion brand, and managed press and marketing for two Olympic 3-day event riders, to name a few of her highlights.

Emma returned to Aberystwyth to work at IGER, managing events and publicity between from 2000-2008, a role she enjoyed immensely, not least for the fantastic team of people she worked with. During this time, she was part of the initial team, alongside the late Sid Thomas and Tony Gordon, to establish and promote Café Scientifique.

She now lives in Wiltshire, where she works as a Marketing Director for a food business.

Growing up in Aberystwyth, Emma kept busy as a teenager with a variety of jobs, working on the castle crazy golf course for Ceredig Davies, serving customers at the Ideal Bakery for Mair Edwards and working front of house at Theatr y Werin - experiences that grounded her love of people, place and community.

Her debut novel, ‘The Colour of Dust and Sunlight’, was sparked by the gift of an Ancestry DNA kit from step-daughter, Katie.

This led Emma to begin researching her family tree and history. What started as curiosity soon grew into something much larger when she revisited her mother’s old family photo and press-cuttings album, filled with images from her grandparents’ time living and working in India.

Emma had always known fragments of their story, but further research revealed a rich, complex narrative - one shaped by heartbreak, love, displacement and life in India during the late 1930s and early 1940s, against the backdrop of the Second World War and a changing empire.

Emma began researching and writing the story as a way of preserving it for future generations of her family. Once completed, the manuscript was shared with a small circle of readers, whose response encouraged her to take the next step and publish it.

The Colour of Dust and Sunlight is a sweeping historical novel that follows her grandmother Eluned’s journey from Birkenhead and Cardiff to the streets of Calcutta and the outposts of northern India. Personal lives weave with major historical events to create a story about love, resilience and bravery.

Emma’s novel is available on Amazon – https://amzn.eu/d/027JztRF.