Chocolate Box Girls: Cherry Crush

I was born in 1962 in Coventry (scarily ancient, I know). I wrote my first picture book for my little brother when I was eight or nine. I loved making comics, too - pages and pages of picture stories, features and competitions. I'd sell my homemade comic to a friend for 5p, then claim it back and sell it again to someone else . . . they didn't have photocopiers back then!

I went to Art College in Liverpool, then got a job as fiction editor on the fab and legendary Jackie magazine. Later, I married my boyfriend Liam, went back to college and trained to be an art teacher. I taught in a Coventry secondary school for a few years, which I loved, then moved to Scotland with Liam to start a family. My kids are 11 and 12 years old now, and the four of us live in a cottage in the Galloway hills with sheep and cows for neighbours. As well as writing books, I am the agony aunt on Shout magazine and a couple of days a week I teach art in a bunch of local primary schools, which is great fun and keeps me sane. (Well, maybe!)

I've been veggie for 28 years, and was vegan for 8 of them - a chocolate-eating vegan, like Storm! I love old clothes, old toys, cars, books. We have three cats, a rabbit and a mad, hairy lurcher called Kelpie (the model for Leggit in my book Dizzy). I love my family, I love living in the middle of nowhere and I love my work. Of all my jobs, writing has to be the best - it's the perfect excuse to daydream, after all!

http://www.cathycassidy.com

https://www.facebook.com/cathycassidyauthor