If you read my books you will learn a lot more about me. This is because my books grow directly out of my life experience and they are full of personal stories and ideas. I like to call them self-help memoirs because they are a mixture of autobiography and the life-lessons I have learned. I have written them to be read as an enjoyable collection of essays and stories. They are perfect for insomniacs and anyone in need of inspiration.

I was born in South Wales in the town where my Welsh mother came from and I grew up in London and the countryside around it. I got the best of both worlds because my parents loved to take me to museums and art galleries and out exploring London, as well as walking in the countryside. My father, William Garner, later became a novelist and he shared his love of books and writing with me. We moved when I was 11 and I went to school in Dorking, Surrey, and in the school holidays I used to stay with a French family in the South of France where I learned to speak French. I studied for two degrees in Brighton, Sussex. The first one, straight after school, was in English and European Studies at the University of Sussex, and the second, an MA, I did thirty years later at the University of Brighton. It was in Sequential Art and Design and I also studied animation because, although I loved writing, I’d always wished I could have done art as well, so I did. I now have a studio where I am working on ideas for illustrated books.

My first newspaper job was on The Observer, as a design writer, and I have worked on eight different national newspapers in the UK, The Observer, The Sun, The Sunday Times, The Mail on Sunday, the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, The Daily Express, the Daily Mail, the London Evening Standard and now I am back on the Daily Telegraph for the second time, writing a weekly problem page, Lifeclass.

I have played many different roles on all these papers: fashion reporter, news reporter, feature writer, film and TV critic, art critic, book reviewer, profile writer and above all, social commentator and columnist. My favourite job was being an art critic.

I love to travel and when I met my former husband, a young doctor, we went to live in Ethiopia – where we got married – and then in Afghanistan. Living in these two extraordinary countries in times of political turmoil has affected the way I look at the world.

I don’t believe that life should be ruled by one’s job and my writing is fed by everything I do. Travel, art and music – I sometimes sing in the London Symphony Chorus - are what feed and renew me, along with nature and my friends and family. I split my life between living in the centre of London, in easy reach of art galleries and cinemas, and in the countryside near Bath.

At the time of writing I write my weekly column in the Daily Telegraph and a monthly column for Easy Living. I published my last book –Everything I’ve Ever Learned about Change” last year and I am looking for the next big project. If you want to find out what I’m up to at the moment, click on to Art Music Life.