Background - originally a journalist, I ventured into fiction by writing novelisations of  TV programmes and then got my first ghostwriting contract. I did several years on the novel-writing course at Morley College, under the incredibly wise tutelage of Juri Gabriel. While honing my craft there I discovered I also had a talent for critiquing, and for many years have freelanced with a leading critiquing agency in London. After widespread success ghostwriting for bestselling household names, I am now presenting my own fiction to the market, and am represented by Jane conway-Gordon in London. Who inspires me? Early influences were Dr Who, for all the ways it asked 'what if' about the ordinary world. Ditto, the Moon landings. When I was growing up I could not live without the work ofTanith Lee and Kate Bush, for their ethereal oddness, and Toyah Willcox, for challenging accepted norms in hair colour. Writers who I would take to a desert island would be Graham Greene, Jan Mark, Ian Fleming, Alisdair Gray, Iain Banks, Daphne Du Maurier, Peter Carey, Gavin Maxwell, Peter Shaffer, Michel Tournier... In half an hour I will have thought of a hundred more.

My ghostwritten titles make the bestseller lists. But confidentiality means I can't tell you who I've pretended to be...