about

Although my pen name is Emily Buchanan, I’m more often referred to as Em, EB or Mimi – take your pick. I grew up on the Kent coast, where my first reader was my little sister, for whom I wrote bedtime stories.

After studying English Literature at the University of East Anglia (having been rejected from their Creative Writing BA…), I went on to work in marketing – as all English Literature graduates seem to. There, I asked travel bloggers to include links to car insurance companies in their posts about The Full Moon Party and watched my spirit slowly wane.

But with the waning comes the waxing and soon, I was off to London to work for Greenpeace UK as a Creative Campaigner. I had found my purpose. Yet, despite doing important, creatively stimulating work, the bedtime storyteller was simmering below the surface – she, who found solace in a thesaurus and subscribed to the Jacqueline Wilson school of thought, was an ever-present entity.

Then a bout of illness made me reassess my life goals. I realised that, despite being rejected from a prestigious writing course and feeling baffled for the majority of my degree, I would never know if the bedtime storyteller was more than a childhood quirk unless I actually wrote. So I quit my dream job and went freelance, informing all who cared to listen that I was going to Write My Book.

I’m still a freelance creative, specialising in communications for charities, NGOs and non-profits. You can find out more about that here. But I did manage to Write My Book (though it took six years).

My debut novel, SEND FLOWERS, is adult fiction about a woman who believes a houseplant is the reincarnation of her late boyfriend. It’s being released on July 1 2025 with VERVE Books (UK) and Park Row Books (US/Canada). I’m represented by Hayley Steed at Janklow & Nesbit.

I left London during the pandemic and now live back in Norwich with my pianist spouse, a small herd of enormous animals and more houseplants than I care to admit.