Angela Ashwin studied Theology at Oxford University and then lectured in Old Testament Studies at St Mary’s College of the Sacred Heart, Newcastle upon Tyne.

In 1972 she went with her husband, who is an Anglican priest, to Swaziland in Southern Africa, where they worked for seven years with the missionary society USPG (United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel). Here she taught English and RE in several secondary schools, and also helped to train men for ordained ministry in the church.

After their return to the UK she began to write books about prayer, beginning with Heaven in Ordinary in 1985. (From then on she continued to write about prayer and the Christian life for a variety of publishers.)

She was a Scholar at the Ecumenical Institute of St John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota for the first half of 2000. Here she shared in the prayer and worship of the Roman Catholic Benedictine community on the campus, and studied the interrelation between liturgy and spirituality, giving a public lecture on the subject. From 2002-3 she was on the staff of the ecumenical spirituality centre at St Antony’s Priory, Durham, UK.

She was made a Lay Canon of Newcastle Cathedral in 2002, and was also a member of the Church of England Liturgical Commission for a few years.

Her husband retired from full-time parish ministry in the North East in 2004, since when they have lived in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. She relaxes by singing in choirs, reading novels and watching television detectives. They have three grown up children.

Visit her on http://www.angelaashwin.com/