"The kind that feels like razor blades in your stomach..."

To Amy J Kirkwood, being confronted with life's choices can sometimes make her feel frozen like one of those living statues. But as she tells the students she teaches, only those who do nothing never make mistakes. 

In a beautifully open and vulnerable piece, writer and teacher Amy J Kirkwood talks about the thing she is most proud of;  recovering from her failures. 

Amy J. Kirkwood writes Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction. The manuscript for her debut novel, Blazers, was commended for the 2017 Pageturner Prize. Most recently, her short fiction has been published in the Mechanics Institute Review Volume 14 and InkTears Issue 101. She has been highly commended for the InkTears flash fiction prize, shortlisted for the Flash500 and TSS prizes and longlisted for the Bath Short Story Award. Amy also ghostwrites MG fiction and is a primary school teacher living in London. She can be found on Twitter at @amyjkirkwood