(Photo by Lauren Taylor)

Hello. Well, I'm someone who has always loved playing with words and making things up.
I've always had an overactive imagination, especially in school. But it wasn't until I was 25
that I first thought about trying to write anything that didn't begin with 'once upon a time' and
centre around a girl called Jenny and her dog called Woof.

I was always a bit scared by 'creative writing classes' when I was at uni (I went to the
university of Birmingham and studied English and Philosophy which was really rather lovely
by the way).

When I was 22 I went to work in a big publishing house called Random House, where I
got paid to dream up shout-lines, stick giant books on billboards, and devise mad stunts
with lots of red beetles around London. Anyway, while I was there I got to learn a whole
heap of stuff about books, publishing and what works on a page and what doesn't work so
well. I also read tons of women's fiction.

Then, one day I had an idea for a book, so I thought I'd have a go myself (without telling anyone, obviously – it's not easy to admit
that you like to dare to 'dabble', when you work in publishing). I never thought for a moment that my ramblings would make it into
print, but I guess you never know until you try.

I grew up in Bucks, in a little place called Chesham. No, not Cheshire, or Chezzam, as many people like to
refer to it, but rather the tiny town right at one of the most far-flung reaches of the Metropolitan Line
(the purple, manky one). It's beyond commuter-ville, it has a rather nice park with a lake, and until recently
it had its own McDonald's whose strap line was 'the only McDonald's in Britain
to make a 2% loss each year'.

Sadly (long may she rest in peace) McD's
Chezzam closed down in 2005. Still, I'm proud (?)
to say I did have my first Saturday job there when
I was 15, along with my best friend Lauren Taylor.
Hideous though it was, without those weekends
spent fry-shovelling and repeating the old 'would-
you-like-that-as-a-value-meal,-it-will-save-you-
15pence?' mantra, it's safe to say I probably
wouldn't have been able to go to uni. And then,
maybe I'd never have written Step on it, Cupid
and Lost for Words, and the world would be
a teeny, tiny bit different.

So thanks, Ron, you big ridiculous man.