I’m very picky about what I read. I love books that give me new knowledge or are able to challenge my current perspectives. To me, the best authors push boundaries and break rules, or are skilled at introducing readers to a foreign culture, a new subject or pressing conflict. Some of my favorite authors are John Ralston Saul, Salman Rushdie, Blaine Harden, Deborah Copaken Kogan and Arthur Golden. I read both fiction and non-fiction. I’m currently reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography “A long walk to freedom.”

My greatest challenge when writing is, and have always been, that I am dyslexic. In, my primary and secondary years, in school, I performed very poorly. I still remember getting my writing back from the teacher with endless red pen corrections. I remember it so clearly that now I zealous check and double check my writing. Today, I read well, but still spell terribly, so I use the computer, an online dictionary and I often get friends to read my work. At University, after getting top grades for many of my assignments, I told one of the professors about my dyslexia and she was like “You, dyslexic, no way.” So the moral of this interview question is, never let countless amounts of red pen markings stand in the way of your dreams.

I always have lots of ideas, stories and themes in my head, so writing a new story or coming up an idea for a great cover has never been a problem. I often get inspired by "real life" issues and try to place myself in that "other person's" situation, I also love to do thorough research on a subject. It's such an amazing, beautify, brutal and crazy world - how can I not get inspired?