My Story - How I became an Award-winning Publisher despite my Dyslexia

Hazel Cushion shares her story.

I never knew I could run a business, and my early years didn’t show much promise. As a teenager I was profoundly depressed and spent 6 months in hospital following a suicide attempt. I went from doing 12 ‘O’ levels to leaving school with just two and an ungraded in Maths. My confidence was very low but I got a place on a Silversmithing course at Medway College of Art and Design. It turned out that beating a flat sheet of silver into a coffee pot proved to be great therapy!

This led me to working in Hatton Garden, and after a couple of years, I got a job selling Garrards jewellery on the QE2. I travelled around the world twice and gradually worked my way up to being Shop Manager. I was really surprised to win first and second prize in the company’s suggestion competition, which totalled £1000 – a lot of money back in the 80s. This was probably an early clue that my dyslexic brain was good at seeing opportunities.

I guess the ship life set a pattern, and I continued to be the proverbial rolling stone. I have since lived in Florida, France, Bali, and Dubai—mostly following my ex-husband’s job; he also worked in Duty-Free. Sometimes, I couldn’t work due to immigration restrictions, and then I would get heavily involved in local charities.

There have been many good times and some really hard ones. I struggled with infertility for several years but in 1996 our triplets were born after our first attempt at IVF. We lived in Bali then and benefitted from so much help and the wonderful climate. Then, just before they were two, the Tiger economies collapsed, and my husband was made redundant. We got on a plane with no keys in our pockets as we didn’t own a house or a car, hadn’t got a job to go to, and had three almost two-year-olds. Luckily, my husband soon got another job setting up a beer and wine warehouse in Calais, and we moved to France. However, the weather was cold and bleak, and the children were frequently ill. When I also came down with glandular fever, my mother decided to come and help. Unfortunately, she drove on the wrong side of the road and was killed in the lane outside our house – it was just before the triplet's third birthday.

I remember very clearly deciding that this tragedy mustn’t affect my children’s lives. I’m not religious, but if she could look back, I wanted her to be proud of how I’d coped. She had always encouraged me to write, so I used a little of the money she’d left to sign up for a correspondence writing course and published quite a few articles and stories. After September 11th, I returned to the UK from Dubai to live alone with the children and joined a writers’ group. The leader there encouraged me to do an MA in Creative Writing, and having turned forty, this seemed an incredible opportunity. They accepted my published work instead of a BA, and I started the one-year course – to be honest, it’s the most fun I’ve had with my clothes on! I learned so much, and letting my creative side flow again was incredibly liberating. We learned how to publish a book as part of the course, and I was hooked. I realised being a writer was far too lonely an occupation for me and the bright world of publishing beckoned. I started Accent Press in 2003 in my front bedroom but quickly moved to a tiny office and employed a full-time assistant. Accent Press became known for being nimble and we certainly were quick on the scene when ebooks started. We won numerous publishing awards, and I was even invited to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen in recognition of my contribution to business in Britain. We had some amazing highs and a fair few lows but I’m incredibly proud of what the team at Accent Press achieved. We created Amazon Number One bestsellers, and for several years, we were part of the Quick Reads scheme, which publishes short books with high-interest content for adult literacy schemes. I saw how those books helped dyslexic adult learners from visiting them in prison. It really brought it home to me how dyslexia can devastate lives if people don’t get the help and support needed.

Accent Press was sold to Headline, part of the Hachette group, in 2020, and since then, I have worked as Jodi Taylor’s agent. Which, as any of you who have read her books will know, is an Honour and a Privilege!