Leicester is home to some of the most exciting emerging writers in the United Kingdom. One of these is poet, short story writer and novelist Emma Lee, who has had poems nominated in competitions that include the Forward Best Poem Prize. Other poems by Emma Lee have been published in anthologies, magazines and webzines and broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Her short stories are proving to be just as significant. "Restoration," was runner-up in Writing Magazine's Annual Ghost Story Competition while "First and Last and Always," another of her short stories, is appearing in Extended Play, a new anthology of music-inspired pieces.

Emma Lee talked about her concerns as a writer.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

It chose me. I spent a lot of time alone as a child — I wasn't lonely, it's just a reflection of the circumstances I found myself in — and frequently made up stories as entertainment. Later I filled exercise books writing my stories and branched out into poems. Although I didn't call myself a writer until I reached adulthood and began getting poems and stories published.

Who would you say has influenced you the most?

At school we mostly studied the War Poets, Heaney, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Ted Hughes... which left me with the impression that either women didn't write poetry, which I didn’t believe, or that women's poetry wasn't worth studying - which was discouraging to say the least.

A friend showed me Ted Hughes's "You Hated Spain" and it spoke to me: I identified with the woman who hated Spain. After reading Ariel, Sylvia Plath had me firmly hooked. Here at last was proof women did write and were worth studying.

How have your personal experiences influenced the direction of your writing?

Fifteen years of music reviewing have provided a rich seam of inspiration and some of my poems and stories have started from exploring a personal experience - not always directly, sometimes from overhearing or reading a news story.

What would you say are the biggest challenges you face?

Finding time to write around a full-time office job (necessary to pay the bills as writing, especially poetry, doesn't pay) and family commitments.

Poetry magazine editors are so generally overwhelmed with poems most are rejecting 98 percent of submissions, which means increasingly my writing time is spent dealing with submissions rather than writing new material.