I live in Hertfordshire, just north of London, with my husband and two children. I’ve loved reading and writing stories since I was a child. I’ve always been fascinated by communication issues and did voluntary work from my late teens with children with disabilities, including deaf-blind children and children with cerebral palsy. I had the idea of writing a thriller in which the person who knows the identity of a murdered is unable to communicate, and Jemma and ‘I Have No Secrets’ was born.

As I began to write, Jemma’s voice felt so strong I felt almost as if she was dictating the book to me. As well as being an author, I have worked as a teacher, a support teacher for hearing-impaired children, a reading recovery teacher, an adult education teacher, a teacher of adults recovering from mental health problems, and currently as a Creative Writing tutor for adults at City Lit in Covent Garden, London, where I run a ‘Writing Children’s Books Workshop’ and a course in ‘Reading for Children’s Writers’.

I am really looking forward to hosting the ABAs this year. It’s going to be lots of fun!