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I came from a family of incredible storytellers, but I didn't start writing children's books until I was 41 years old.

I wrote my first book when I was in my late thirties.

When I first decided I was going to have a go at writing a book - and really, it was a mid-life crisis - I was 39. I was in business with my husband; we had a very busy lifestyle and quite a hectic schedule running this flourishing business in travel, and I found myself waking up and realising that I didn't want to do this anymore.

I didn't go to school a full year until I was 11 or 12, so I lived in books. I really was an observer of life.

I began writing seriously in my mid-20s and didn't publish my first book until I was 41.

I spent five years of my childhood in Port Elgin and came back to spend another five years of my young adulthood there as well, including the years in which I was first published.

I wrote my first books when I was single and then I got married and then had a kid and there were different things happening in my life.

I didn't start writing my own books until I was 40.

From my earliest days, reading was my passion, and at Cambridge, where I studied English literature, my intellectual life deepened and grew.

I grew up in the suburbs among highly educated people, in a house crammed with books. It was a culture rich in ideas, stimulation, entertainment, and mental activity, all helpful to the nurture of an imaginative child who wanted from an early age to be a writer.