Diana Rosie
An early school report noted I wrote interesting, imaginative stories. Despite this clue, I went to art school and began a career in advertising.
As a copywriter, I wrote for every kind of client from rebranding Nigeria, to helping health professionals prescribe viagra. Copywriters are well known for secret aspirations of becoming authors. Not me.
The penny finally dropped when I was made redundant and, looking for something to fill my days, decided to try writing a book. That book was Alberto's Lost Birthday, which was published in 2016.
Alberto was an elderly Spanish gardener called Pascual I met when I was a child. Because of the civil war, he didn't know how old he was – a thought so incredible to my seven-year-old self it never left me. A nugget of truth with which to begin my story.
Since Alberto, I've written my second novel, Pippo & Clara, assisted by my brilliant husband, regularly interrupted by two kids, a dog and six chickens.
A childhood in Hong Kong, a career break to work as an adventure holiday tour leader in Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala, and Egypt, and holidays in destinations such as Bhutan, Kyrgyztan and Tibet have filled my head with pictures and ideas.
But now I've finally figured out what I want to do, there is nowhere I would rather do it than at home.
