I was born in 1962 in Coventry (scarily ancient, I know). I wrote my first picture book for my little brother when I was eight or nine. I loved making comics, too - pages and pages of picture stories, features and competitions. I'd sell my homemade comic to a friend for 5p, then claim it back and sell it again to someone else, they didn't have photocopiers back then!
I went to Art College in Liverpool, then got a job as fiction editor on the fab and legendary Jackie magazine. Later, I married my boyfriend Liam, went back to college and trained to be an art teacher. I taught in a Coventry secondary school for a few years, which I loved, then moved to Scotland with Liam to start a family. For 12 years I was the agony aunt for teen mag Shout, as well as teaching art in several local primary schools, but these days the books take up pretty much all of my time and attention.
