Mary Hoffman has been writing books for children and young adults for many decades. She is now writing a book for adults, which she hopes will reach its audience. She is also a journalist who reviews in the national press (UK) and ran her own children's book review magazine, Armadillo, for ten years. Now Mary is The Book Maven at http://bookmavenmary.blogspot.com, blogging regularly about books, writing and the publishing industry, especially children's.Mary has three grown up daughters who work in the Arts; the oldest is Rhiannon Lassiter, also a published author. There is no likelihood that Mary will ever retire; she plans to write for ever. There are already over 90 books and contracts for more.When she was a very small girl, Mary had her appendix taken out by Enid Blyton's husband, but he was a surgeon, so that was all right.Mary lives in a converted barn in Oxfordshire, England, with her husband, an Aga and three Burmese cats. She always has Burmese cats except for two who were Abyssinian and the first one who was a long-haired tabby.She likes Indian and Thai food and is a vegetarian. She is a closet Italian, who has been "out" for many years now. She goes to an Italian Literature class in Oxford every week and to Italy as often as she can; her financial adviser told her to.She is a member of the "Other SAS' (Scattered Authors Society) and Tweets as @MARYMHOFFMAN - Mary loves new technology and the blogosphere.