Hello, I have been writing secretly for years, since I was a child, and it’s become almost like therapy, but not even my husband knew initially; despite, people always saying, “you should sing/ what a voice/ you’ve got a great voice” etc, I never thought I was good enough and/or felt people would laugh at me if I told them I wanted to be a singer-songwriter and that there were much better voices than mine out there. No one would think it but deep down I had such low self-esteem. Then one night, after a really stressful year in my day job and a few hard lessons on how short life can be, I met someone and opened up to them about my real dreams, having just spent hours in the car listening to a self help podcast telling me how I should be more open and manifest, talk about it, believe etc… I tried to take as much of it on board as I could and had this random moment of courage and fully opened up! Anyway, I had absolutely no idea but it turned out he was a multi award winning music producer (such crazy fate) and, to cut a long story short he said he’d love to see/ hear my songs and once we met again and he read some of my lyrics, he told me I had to go for it, I had to do this… slowly, with his help and the help of a vocal coach for confidence, here I am… I have these “drafts” and about 100+ more – I’m currently saving for a proper album release… music, writing and singing does something for me that nothing else does. It’s got me through the darkest of times too which can be heard I think and people often say they cry when listening to some of them but my catalogue isn’t all sad and upsetting :), but all quite meaningful… I think my songs are very relatable and they’re real… that’s what people tell me; hopefully you will find that too. Please note, these are all drafts/ acoustics (awaiting production) with the exception of one, which has had some production but still not finished, am back in the studio in August to do this… and I’m aware of some voice/ timing issues that could be better/ fly high needs my voice to step up for sure and will be on the final record (but it’s about a best friend/ sister who died and on the day of this recording I was very, very teary when singing it – all really hit me that day!). Gosh, I’ve written a lot here! Thanks so much for your time and for this competition which gives people like me such opportunities. it’s very much appreciated. I live in Crystal Palace, London, so super easy for me to be anywhere. Much love, Christelle x