When many people imagine a writer’s life, they picture a solitary figure at a desk — perhaps with
a cat and a mug of tea — quietly spinning tales from the comfort of home…
But for writer, publisher, and educator Hannah Stevens, who hails from Leicester, writing has been anything but confined. It’s taken her across continents, from Bulgaria to Taiwan, and brought her into collaboration with everyone from international NGOs to grassroots storytellers.
Picture: Hannah Stevens
“I didn’t envision writing as a career growing up,” she tells Pukaar. “I come from a working-class background and was the first in my family to go to university. Writing didn’t seem like something you could build a life from — it was just something I loved doing.”
That love deepened during her undergraduate studies in Creative Writing and English at De Montfort University in Leicester. A turning point came when she discovered The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier.
“ I completely fell in love with the short story form. There’s something so precise and powerful about them — the way they can capture a moment and leave a lingering emotional impact.“
Short stories have since become Hannah’s creative passport. Over the past decade, she’s lived and worked in Myanmar, Greece, Bulgaria, Scotland, and Taiwan, producing a diverse body of work — from fiction to creative writing workshops, research projects, and storytelling initiatives focused on social justice.
Her 2021 short story collection In Their Absence (Roman Books) explores the haunting world of missing people in the UK, inspired by her PhD research at the University of Leicester. “Over 170,000 people are reported missing each year in the UK, but only a tiny percentage make the headlines. I wanted to explore the emotional landscapes of those left behind.”
Hannah’s drive to amplify unheard voices led to one of her most meaningful projects: a creative writing course for survivors of domestic abuse in Bulgaria, developed with the Emprove Foundation. The bilingual micro-stories created were later exhibited at the National Gallery of Bulgaria.
“These women were incredibly brave in sharing their experiences. It was a powerful reminder of how writing can be a tool for healing, resilience, and transformation,” she says.
Now based in Tainan, Taiwan, she is co-director of Wind&Bones, an independent publisher and social enterprise founded with Dr Will Buckingham. They run international storytelling projects, edit collections, and host philosophy salons and creative writing cafés. The name comes from a quote by medieval Chinese writer Liu Xie: “So cultivate the strength of the wind, and make the bone robust” — a metaphor for their blend of creativity and structure.
Picture credit: Hannah Stevens
Their latest publication, Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese and Gaelic, is a multilingual collaboration between writers in Scotland and Taiwan, celebrating linguistic diversity and translation.
Hannah is also finalising her next collection, On the Bodies of Strangers, exploring tattoos as narrative markers of human experience.
Despite her global journey, Leicester remains close to her heart. Her advice for writers? “Keep writing if it brings you joy, and stay open to where it might lead. Writing is about connection — to yourself, to others, and to the world.”
To find out more about Hannah Stevens, visit: www.hannahstevenswriter.com
