I grew up in Auckland, New Zealand. When I was nine years old, I started telling bedtime stories to my Godsister about creatures from another world called Shadows. Every one in our world had a Shadow of their own a world away, the stories went, a counterpart. This was the missing piece of them which explained the loneliness that all humans felt at some point. The stories about Shadows became a novel, which I wrote and redrafted all through school at Belmont Intermediate and then Takapuna Grammar.

Now there are six novels in the completed Shadows Series and the books have been loved by readers all over the world. I've also run school talks, writing workshops and book launches where attendees have gotten to draw what their own Shadows would look like! We also serve ludicrous amounts of apple crumble, because it's quite an iconic dish within the books.