Angela Patmore was born in Walthamstow of a poor working-class family and missed much of her schooling due to asthma and domestic violence. Determined to be a writer she took evening classes and studied English at Exeter University, achieving a first in all nine papers of her BA Hons finals. As a Fulbright Scholar she gained an MA at the College of William & Mary, Virginia. She is the author of twenty published books but has also served as an External Expert Stress Advisor to the Met Police, a life-skills trainer to the long-term unemployed and a UEA Research Fellow specialising in the clinical literature on the bogus concept ‘stress’. Her controversial book The Truth About Stress was shortlisted for the MIND Book of the Year Award.