Caroline Lawrence

Like every child growing up in America, I read 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn.' I liked them well enough, but I didn't love them. ”

Aim to write for an hour per day. I used to be a teacher, and an hour a day before school was all it took for me to write my first book. Don't get discouraged if a holiday or illness interrupts your writing habit. Just start it up again. ”

When I was nine, we moved to Stanford University in San Francisco so that my father could do a Ph.D. I went to Terman Junior High in Palo Alto. It was terrible, because my hormones were all over the place, and I became an ugly adolescent full of rage and loathing. ”

To create a character who really interests you, try combining aspects of your favourite fictional character with a real person. ”

Of the two 'True Grits,' the John Wayne version one is better. ”

At 16, when I was at Henry M. Gunn High School, I had a crush on the English teacher, and my grades improved dramatically. This great school had only 400 students, mostly children of Stanford professors, and it was more usual to have classes under one of the oak trees dotted around the campus than in the classroom. ”

I write about times and places I would visit in a time machine, like ancient Rome or the Wild West. ”

After I had written seventeen full-length mysteries, two volumes of mini-mysteries, a travel guide and some quiz books, not to mention a spin-off Roman Mystery Scrolls series, I thought it was time I moved to new historical pastures. ”