Writer · Poet · Teacher · Explorer of Place and Story
Born in London, educated at Cambridge, and at home for more than thirty years in Key West, Ros writes across forms and borders: novels, poetry, stories and literary biography.
Forthcoming novel
“Brackenbury’s exquisite novel of psychological suspense delivers an unrelenting exploration of desire under the heavy stillness of a Provençal summer, ablaze with secrets and ‘stinging cicada-loud heat.’”
Stephen Kitsakos, playwright and editor of Key West Noir
A new novel set in the Lubéron region of Provence.
Now available for preorder
Forthcoming memoir
A Writer’s Life in Key West
A personal account of a writer’s life shaped by Key West and the wider world, through friendship, artistic community, journeys, departures and returns.
Working title; cover a work in progress.
Publication date to be announced
Discover the memoir →Selected work
Read about Bone WhispersFiction
Returning from the US to her inherited house on the Dorset coast, Nessa hears that a woman’s bones have been uncovered after a cliff fall. Old paths and returning memories draw her toward a buried truth.
About the book
Read about Light Over IslandsStories & Novellas
Key West Stories
Stories gathered over thirty years in Key West: quarrels and reconciliations, storms and crossings, a Christmas party beneath a mango tree, and ordinary lives transformed by the island’s extraordinary light.
About the book
Read about Without HerFiction
When Hannah disappears from her family house in the south of France, her oldest friend Claudia joins the search, and must reckon with jealousy, loyalty, and the complicated geometry of a lifelong friendship.
About the book“A steady, cool, thoughtful novel… a meditation on loyalty, friendship, and the geometry of human interconnections.”Kirkus Reviews on Without HerPress, reviews & recognition →
From the desk
Monthly letters about books, places, attention, friendship and the life around the work. Ros’s long-running letters, kept together here.
Read the notes
14 October 2026 · No. 90
I can hardly believe I’ve written 90 of these newsletters, and that you are still reading my monthly missives. Thank you! 10 more to go, and then I’ll do something else… The original idea came from a sculptor friend who posted…
Read this letter →The quieter rooms
On the Camino de Santiago. A sequence of ten poems, as Ros wrote them.
Enter →Where Ros has lived, walked and written, in her own words from Notes on a Writing Life.
Enter →Readings and conversations, linked where they are kept.
Enter →Subjects Ros returns to across the letters.
Enter →Ros’s books, with earlier editions and translations.
Enter →Friends, writers and artists whose presence remains in the work and on the island.
Enter →The monthly newsletter
Ros’s monthly letter about books, places, attention and the life around the work, sent by email.
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Every past letter of Notes on a Writing Life is collected on this site.
Read the Notes →A separate subscription for newer essays, poems and observations as the writing develops.
Read Ros on Substack ↗