I have been a writer for 30 years – articles, short stories, poems, the odd radio play, and writing competitions. Like many writers it was a hobby, something I did almost furtively in my spare time, while employed in my ‘bread and butter’ work, and looking after my family; all the while waiting to be discovered. The big one, the novel I sent out and was rejected – ‘we very much liked your story but our lists are full’. For the last 23 of those years I have also been a foster carer, looking after children who could not be cared for by their own parents, often rising at 4.30 to write as that was the only free (and quiet) time. Then miraculously the two halves of my life – writer and foster carer - came together in a way that was truly the stuff of dreams. I wrote about a child I had fostered and it immediately became a number one best seller.
