I have written all of my life, beginning with stories penciled on old greeting cards when I was about seven years old. My first paid publication was a poem for the Canadian magazine Chatlaine, at the age of eighteen, and several years later my first non-fiction article was published in Great Britain's History Today. I went on to have a modest career as a magazine journalist before turning to books.
Various English teachers in high-school encouraged my writing, though looking back, I think much of their emphasis was on what I would now call 'purple prose.' Nevertheless, they inspired more...
