I was born a Swede and, like many wholesome girls, spent my adolescent years crazed with love of horses.
When I was 13, my parents sold their farm in rural Sweden and on a whim moved to the Canary Islands. From one day to the next the horses were gone and I was living in Franco’s Spain. There was a German school, the only one which offered a reasonable education, so I had no choice but to become an islander and learn both German and Spanish in a hurry.
My parents, ever restless and adventurous, soon decided to start a new life in Canada, and at age 18, I followed them there. I spent a year in Toronto and another year being a hippie, hitchhiking solo around South America, before settling on the west coast. I loved Vancouver and took Canadian citizenship. Marriage and children were followed by divorce.
With a law qualification, I obtained a Seal as Notary Public for a small sub-Arctic community, which later would become the setting for my debut novel ICE TRAP. Like Dafydd in ICE TRAP I wanted to escape, get as far away from civilization as possible.
I stayed, with my two children, Elise and Erik, in this little outpost on the Alaska Highway for two years, when along came another escapist, a handsome English doctor named John, who would shortly become my husband.
He whisked us to England, then Wales. There I re-trained as a psychotherapist and worked for the National Health Service and in private practice. My interest in writing started around this time, with a syndicated newspaper column about mental health, and a biography of a transsexual.
After twelve years of learning a lot about people, I felt burnt-out and was yearning for a change (my fate, I blame my parents). Asking John to feed and water me for a foreseeable future, I embarked on a degree in Applied Sculpture and concurrently did a part-time Masters degree in Creative Writing. Why do things by halves?
I worked very hard at both sculpting and writing, and initially it looked as if I was going to make my future living as a sculptor. My stone-carvings won two awards and I had several solo exhibitions… until ICE TRAP was finally published and took off into the blue yonder.
The kids have flown the nest (Erik lives in Canada, Elise in Wales) and John and I now live almost full-time on our fruit farm in the mountains of Granada, Spain.
It’s a great place to write… Yep! That is what I do now, and forever more.