I was born in a castle. No - honestly! Which I figure makes me a princess. But my mum and dad took me home to a very tiny flat in a town in Scotland called Kilsyth.  I lived there with my big brother and big sister until we moved to a small house with a garden.

I didn’t start talking till I was three and one of the neighbours thought I was a bit ‘slow’. Then I started to read all on my own at almost the same time. Which delighted my mum and dad, but kinda upset the neighbour.

Soon I was gobbling up books (not literally). I loved going out to play too and was always falling off my bike and getting skint knees and into scrapes!

I had a best friend from I was about seven. Like me she was called ‘Margaret’. We both had dark hair and dark eyes and the teachers couldn’t tell us apart very well. We were BEST BUDS and she was VERY VERY FUNNY. I guess we were both imaginative and lively. It was a bit like Sassy and Cordelia and Taslima in the Seriously Sassy books, except there were just two of us!

I loved school cos I loved seeing all my friends. Then I went to university and studied French and German, which was cool too. I even lived in Paris for a year - ooh-la-la!

Oh, and I got married and had three children - one boy, Stuart, and two girls, Keira and Hazel.

When they were little I started writing. It came out mostly as poetry first. I get angry about things that happen in the world - just like Sassy does, and I put all my feelings into my poems.

Most of all now I love writing novels. I loved being thirteen - it was great to be a teenager at last, but frustrating too, cos grown-ups didn’t always treat me with respect or think about how confusing it was to change so fast. (My hair was very short too and I was always getting mistaken as a boy and that used to upset me quite a bit!)

So I suppose that’s why I love writing stories where my main character is thirteen and having a ball with her bezzies and getting angry with the grown-ups and all hot and bothered about boys - and baby seals and pandas.

                                Maggi xxx