I grew up in Ottawa, Ontario (which is a great place to grow up as long as you like winter!). As a kid I loved books, drawing, and riding my bike. One of my favourite games with good friends was putting on plays, or any excuse for make-believe. Some of my favourite books were J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped. (And they still are favourites.)

Loving stories led to me loving history, especially retelling it in a way that’s exciting and makes you feel as if you were there. After all, history is stories of real people in extraordinary circumstances, facing crises that changed our world. I always wondered: what would I have done in their place? And how would I have felt?

Like lots of enthusiastic readers, I studied English literature at university. And since I was fascinated by why people act and think the way they do, I studied Psychology too.

After that I became a book editor, and worked a lot on books for children and teens.