When I was a kid I lived in a little Scottish town where nobody locked their cars or their back doors. Every Friday the fish man came around and my mother would buy three pieces of haddock and two packets of smoky bacon crisps, one for me and one for my sister. I'd eat my crisps lying on my bed, reading. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years reading on that bed. The mattress probably has a dent in it to match the shape of my left elbow, the one I always leant on while I used my right hand to turn the pages.
I left home at 17 to study English literature at the University of Aberdeen. I chose Aberdeen on the grounds that it was as far away as I could get from home, and still be in Scotland. I chose English literature on the grounds that it meant lots of reading. The essays were a bit of a trial, though.
After graduating, I dabbled in various jobs and then half-heartedly applied for a job as a copywriter in Amsterdam. To my own surprise, I got it and took my first tentative steps out of Scotland. I never really went back. I discovered, not how big the world was, but, once out of Scotland, how easy it was to see it.
After Amsterdam, I lived in Canada, San Francisco and London. Now I can be found in Sydney, Australia - my husband's home town - bringing up our two small children to have Aussie accents.
I still read avidly, staggering out of the library regularly, laden with piles of books. I'm not picky, anything that's well-written with an exciting plot is for me, although I'm not a huge fan of crime or detective novels. I worry sometimes that one day I'll go to the library and find I've read everything. That would be my idea of a nightmare. Still, I suppose I could get started on the crime and detective novels.