I love books; I'm a bookoholic, with usually four or five on the go simultaneously in different rooms. I read a lot of history - until men started to wear trousers, I'm a romantic; so I also love fantasy books, the sword'n'sorcery kind, and adventure. I dislike soppy romance and wallowing in violence, though there always seems to be a fair bit of that in my books - maybe just because I write about violent times. Both my first 2 books won awards from the Scottish Arts Council, and a later one was chosen by New York Public Libraries as one of its best 100 books. My other hobbies are travel, am dram [I write, produce, and love to act in pantos and plays in my local drama club], gardening, and painting - pictures, not houses, though I've done that in my time. I live in Scotland, in a small town on the shore of the Moray Firth. As a teacher for many years, I learned what kinds of page my pupils skipped when reading, and take care not to write like that. I'm told I write for young adults; as far as I'm concerned, I write for anybody who can read. My first two fan letters were from a boy of 8 and a man of 94, so 'young adults' covers a fair bit of ground.