A west Cumbrian teacher and children's author has had her work noticed by a Dragon's Den star.

Helen Heraldsen, an English teacher at Keswick School, had her first book published in 2019 by Cockermouth-based Elterwater Press.

But when Covid hit, the publisher closed and Helen has continued as a solo 'authorpreneur' since then.

As well as working as a teacher and writing two book series: Amber’s Pony Tales and Daley’s Dog Tales, Helen's been learning about the business of publishing.

Helen, who lives in Great Clifton, said: "I already had the series started and people were reading them I thought do I put these people on hold and look for another publisher, or do I continue on my own? So that's what I thought I'd do.

"I've got no experience in business, I've been a teacher forever so I didn't know anything about that. I found the community of self published authors and I've learned as I've gone."

This year, she's published five fiction books and agreed a foreign rights deal with a Turkish publisher for the translation rights for her book, ‘The Dalmatian that Lost its Spots’.

And Helen has just been chosen as a winner of Theo Paphitis’ Small Business Sunday competition.

Theo is best known for appearing on Dragons' Den on BBC Two and is the owner of Ryman Stationery, Boux Avenue lingerie and Robert Dyas homeware.

The competition invites entrants to describe their businesses in one tweet.

Helen was chosen as a winner with her tweet: "I'm a children's authorpreneur, animal lover, book enthusiast and literacy skills advocate. I'd love to win to help spread the word that literacy opens minds and doors...to the world and the opportunities in it."

"I thought it might be worth me entering. It was a bit of a shock. It's nice to have the recognition," she said.

The 41-year-old is passionate about children's literacy which led her to start writing books.

Helen said: "The release you can get from reading a book is amazing.

"A lot of people have found creative writing during Covid and lockdown and have experienced how wonderful it is. For a lot of children, the draw of devices and technology is keeping them away from that.

"As a teacher, I'm noticing that literacy skills are not improving, if anything, they are going backwards. You can't go out into the world if you haven't got good literacy skills. It holds you back in everything - applying for jobs, communication, if you haven't got those skills, it's a major door slam.

"I really want to make sure that nobody has that as an obstacle in life. I'm producing books that kids want to read and I've started doing writing courses as well."

Helen draws inspiration from her own experiences of growing up around animals when writing her stories.

She added: "I put my own animals into the books. I've been brought up with animals. I've spent most of my time with dogs and cats and ponies. They're my go-to subjects. People say write what you know and are passionate about."

The books can be purchased from Amazon or can be ordered from a book shop, if not already in stock.