BIOG

• I was born in Chile, and travelled round the most exotic parts of South America and the Caribbean before I was old enough to notice any of it.
• I went to primary schools in Tain, Innerleithen, and Dufftown, and then Speyside High School in Aberlour.
• I spent ten childhood years living beside a distillery, a river and a railway line, giving me lots of opportunities for incredibly dangerous outdoor games.
• I became involved in student politics at Glasgow University when I should have been attending maths lectures.
• I was the Scottish National Party‘s Press Officer for many exciting and sleepless years and then a researcher and producer at BBC Radio Scotland.
• I have had short stories published in anthologies and magazines, and won the Canongate Prize in 2001.
• I now live in Leith, and work as a fulltime writer and storyteller, visiting schools to talk about my children’s books, and to tell traditional tales from Scotland and all over the world.
• I started writing my first children’s novel at night while my own children slept, and finished it when my younger daughter started nursery.
• My children are both at school, so now when I’m writing, I’m distracted by our cats, Winnie and Tam Linn, who keep chasing the mouse, walking on the keyboard to type cats into every chapter, and putting damp muddy pawprints on my manuscripts, which looks quite eerie on a page about wolves stalking Helen.

I’m now working on my next book, but I’m not telling anyone what it’s called yet!