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I was born in England, and brought up there and in Iraq, which is the setting for two  children's novels in progress Return of the Summer Fish and Escape from the Marshes.

My Dad used to say, "If you keep reading, you'll end up in widows' home wearing a little red hat." I have no idea what that meant - or where he got the saying - but I do know he was trying to tell me that I read too much. (Not that he could talk - he's read more books than anyone I know!)

But I kept reading, wrote a lot of lies in my journal (no one told me that what I was doing was making up stories!), and when I grew up I  got a job in a library - first in London, England. Then in BC, Canada.

I spent 30 years working there. For about seven years I helped adults, children, and teachers pick good books, and presented story times, programs, and library tours. For the rest of the time I checked out books, put up displays, chose books for homebound readers, helped adults find good books and information, wrote news releases and helped raise money for special programs and services.

All that time I was also writing and publishing stuff for adults 'on the side'.  And teaching writing workshops to adults, kids, seniors, prison inmates, and at writing conferences. Which I love. I often say that when I'm teaching, I wish I was home writing. And when I'm writing, I wish I was teaching.

I'm glad I get to do both!
 

When I retired from the library, I took up writing for kids. And I'm loving it.

(The boring stuff: I live in Surrey, British Columbia with my husband and a number of houseplants. When I'm not writing, reading or teaching, I like to be out and about on my bike. I have one grown-up daughter, and loads of friends - most of whom are writers too.

       I love wine gums, mechanical pencils, the sounds of a baseball cracking against a bat (even thought I don't play or understand baseball), the smell of fresh-cut lawns, shawls, wonton soup, a dog called Cowboy (he's not mine, though!), Arabic music, kids' drawings, bubbles in the bath and in the air, the Sinai desert, and double-decker buses. )