Katie Fforde

Katie Fforde, née Catherine Rose Gordon-Cumming (born 27 September 1952), is a British romance novelist. Published since 1995, her novels are set in modern-day England.

She is founder of the Katie Fforde Bursary for writers who have yet to secure a publishing contract. She was for many years a committee member of the Romantic Novelists' Association and was elected its twenty-fifth chairman (2009–2011) and later its fourth president. In June 2010 she was announced as a patron of the UK's first National Short Story Week. In 2016, she launched the Stroud Contemporary Fiction Writing Competition as part of the first Stroud Book Festival.

Biography Catherine Rose Gordon-Cumming was born on 27 September 1952 in Wimbledon, London, the daughter of Shirley Barbara Laub and Michael Willoughby Gordon-Cumming. Her grandfather was Sir William Gordon-Cumming.

Many of Fforde's own experiences end up in her books. Her novel Going Dutch was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller in June 2007. Fforde takes the research for her books seriously, employing a 'method acting'-style approach to the different professions and backgrounds featured in her novels, using experiences such as being a porter in an auction house, making pottery, refurbishing furniture, examining the processes behind a dating website, and going on a Ray Mears survival course.