A Potted History
Sarah Rayner lives in Hove with her husband, Tom. She was born in London, the eldest daughter of psychoanalyst Eric Rayner and children’s book author/illustrator Mary Rayner. She and her two brothers, Will and Ben, spent their childhood in Richmond, Surrey, then Sarah discovered punk, spiked her hair and went to Leeds University to study English and get chilblains. She returned to London in the late ’80s, flattened her hair and worked in fashion PR for a bit, before her boss told her she was better at writing than schmoozing clients, and suggested she become an advertising copywriter.
She took the hint, and after ten years in various London agencies, turned freelance, got some short stories published by Woman’s Own, and for many years combined life as an author and copywriter. Her first two novels, ‘The Other Half’ (Orion 2001) and ‘Getting Even’ (2002) were well received on publication, but it was her third novel, ‘One Moment, One Morning’ (Picador 2010) that made the biggest mark in terms of sales, selling over 300,000 copies in the UK alone. (Sarah is pictured above with the UK Bestseller Award she received for sales of over 250,000.) The last 15 years have seen the novel translated into over a dozen languages and published in China, South America and Eastern Europe, and this success meant Sarah was able to focus on her fiction and non-fiction writing full time.
Sarah’s fourth novel, ‘The Two Week Wait’, was published in 2012, 2013 saw the publication of reworked editions of her first two novels, ‘The Other Half’ and ‘Getting Even’ in both the UK and US. Her fifth novel, ‘Another Night, Another Day’ was published by Picador in 2014. Like ‘The Two Week Wait’, it features the Brighton-based characters who readers first met in ‘One Moment, One Morning’, but is a complete standalone novel.
2014 saw the launch of Sarah’s ‘Making Friends/Peace’ series of self-help books, focusing on mental health. In ‘Making Friends with Anxiety’, ‘More Making Friends with Anxiety’ and ‘A Calming Colouring Book’, Sarah draws on her own experience of anxiety to help others help themselves. These have now been joined by ‘Making Friends with the Menopause’, co-authored by Dr Patrick Fitzgerald; ‘Making Peace with Depression’, ‘Making Peace with Divorce’ with Pia Pasternack and ‘Making a Baby’ with Tracey Sainsbury.
Readers can benefit from ongoing support online via closed (i.e. confidential) groups on Facebook (Making Friends with Anxiety and Depression, which has over 10,000 members and Making Friends with the Menopause which has 5000 members.
Sarah collaborates with web designer Kerry Richardson, cover designers like Beth Free from Nic & Lou, photographer John Knight, page-setting specialist Leigh Forbes and art director Jonathan Roberts to produce the covers and interiors of her Making Friends/Peace books, and all the titles feature her own photographs and illustrations.
She drew upon her marketing background to produce the series, and in 2015, to move the books to the next level, she expanded into publishing with the launch of the small press, Creative Pumpkin Publishing (you can read all about that on a separate website, here). In 2018 Sarah appeared with Davina McColl in a short film talking about mental wellbeing – you can view the film here. She is also a regular contributor to the popular magazine, Psychology Today. You can read her blogs, which focus on mental health, over there. She also writes for Moodscope, a brilliant online tool she uses to measure her moods and check she is not manically high or down in the depths with depression.
