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I wasn’t born in Leith. I am what my mum used to call a ‘pinned on’ Leither. I may be associated with the port just outside Edinburgh through my dad and the lineage from his side of the family but my mum was from well beyond the south side of the city, a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of the docks and the stunning views to Fife. They met at Duncan’s chocolate factory in the early 60s. And the rest, as they say, is history. Where am I from? As far as I know – Scottish born

We all know the stories of old. Vikings landing on our shores. Long ships filling harbours with strong, bold men as they step onto land with one thing on their mind. The villages and towns they visit are never quite the same after they leave, their parting gifts of death and destruction are left in plain sight for all to see – a warning perhaps, that they’re just getting started. There’s a trail of blood wherever they go. They are unstoppable. Treasure and power is what they seek. Land they can claim after a sharp knife has taken away any

I tend not to set any new year resolutions now. Without a doubt life will throw a massive curve ball my way and I’ll end up missing deadlines, forgetting something Very Important and generally feeling miserable for failing and it’s not even the 2nd January yet. Saying all that, there is one thing I will always keep going and that’s my jar. With £1 in the jar for every book I read this year, I’m hoping for a fantastic amount to give to charity by Dec 31st 2022. In 2021 I read 52 books which meant I could give £52

I read a lot of books. Picture books, middle grade novels, YA, crime… the list is endless but they’re worth every minute I spend devouring the words. Last year I was given a diary to record all the books I read, what I thought of them and comments I may have had about the characters within the pages. I am so glad I did this because looking back, as we all do at the start of a new year, I am amazed at the books that have crossed my path. With 52 under my belt for 2021, it was hard

In my time on this planet so far, I’ve never lived outside Scotland’s capital city. Even now, many years after I’ve left my childhood home, I haven’t strayed farther than a few miles away from my old primary school and gang-hut days. I still walk the streets where I got scabby knees from learning to ride my first ever (borrowed from a neighbour) bike and my very own new-to-me roller skates (Apollo 13s – best birthday ever). Despite my reluctance to set down roots elsewhere in the world, it hasn’t stopped me travelling and meeting people from different cultures and

When you write a new story, you create the characters as if you’re meeting them for the first time. You get to decide everything about them, from the colour of their hair to what they have for breakfast. As a writer or illustrator you get the envious task of being able to create a new being, in a new world. The opportunities to capture a personality trait in the sentences written or an emotive glance in the illustrations, are marvellously endless. Without a conceived idea or the drawings to bring those thoughts to life, I believe stories wouldn’t exist. Text