A WRITER from Chudleigh has been honoured with a lifetime achievement award.

Elizabeth Ducie was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the ninth Annual Women in Publishing Summit.

Elizabeth is a prolific author with 24 titles to her name across a variety of genres.

During a long career as an international manufacturing consultant, she authored a number of textbooks and training manuals and edited a technical journal.

But in 2012, she ‘gave it all up to tell lies for a living’.

A passionate advocate of independent publishing, she set up her own imprint, Chudleigh Phoenix Publications, and in 2015 her debut novel was Runner-Up in the Self-Published Book of the Year Awards.

She followed this with a series of four thrillers set in the murky world of pharmaceuticals manufacturing, before beginning the Coombesford Chronicles series of cosy crime set in a fictional Devon village.

She is currently working on the fifth cosy novel but has lots of other ideas she wants to develop too.

Elizabeth also writes non-fiction in the form of the Author Business Foundation series, business books for authors.

She speaks and runs workshops on the business side of writing and coaches authors on their first steps towards self-publishing.

She said: ‘I was delighted, but completely surprised, to hear I was in the running for the award.

‘I never suspected I would even be nominated and to hear my name announced was incredible.

‘The Women in Publishing Awards exist to shine a light on the women doing the work—the publishers, editors, authors, and advocates who lift others as they rise.

‘I feel honoured and humbled to have been included in this group and recognised in this way.'

The Women in Publishing Summit is a global virtual event and year-round community dedicated to helping authors and publishing professionals.

The awards recognise women who are shaping and transforming the publishing industry through leadership, innovation, and community.