About Me
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It could be fun to invent my own character… to take on some whacky personality but most authors live quite normal lives. I grew up between the sea and mountains on the southernmost tip of Africa, the youngest in a family of three girls. My mother seemed very glamorous and my father was my mapmaker, helping me plot unfamiliar territory and the texture of new experiences. My most vivid memories are of sailing through the countryside in our cavernous 1937 Airflow De Soto, the front windscreen down, hot air blowing in… our destination the Victoria Falls and nights out in the African bush. In a way I think I’m a bit of an archaeologist. Wherever I am – in places like the Okavango Swamps, China, Egypt, Korea, Russia – travelling across Siberia by train, in Senegal, Tunisia or Vietnam, I snap images, draw maps, sketch, collect scraps of paper… hoping somewhere to find the thread of a story. |
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Skipping quickly through the past to the present… I’ve been an art and ceramics teacher and entered a writing competition when I was 10 with a story called Chocolate… not quite as successful as the book and film of the same name… but I was hooked! I live in central London with my husband, and two sons and a granddaughter nearby. I love the city with its layers of history, the constant change and the turmoil of so many strange people. Yet every now and again I need to turn back to Africa where I grew up and connect with the wide open spaces of the bush again. Pictures below: elephants on the Zambezi, the Great Wall of China (I’m in the white hat) and on safari in Zambia. |
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My Book Lists links Picture books that should be read to every child Excellent thick books for a dark winter’s evening Excellent thin books you can pack for a journey My Travel Lists links Cape Town – great places to eat and things to do Plettenberg Bay – Restaurants, Hotels and things to do Italy – Best restaurants and boutique hotels in Tuscany and Umbria Best of Beijing – restaurants, markets and things to do
See the rest of my lists. |
Read an Interview with me on Author Hotline – a new resource of author profiles which launched on World Book day 2010. |
