I CAN REMEMBER very clearly when I first decided I wanted to be a journalist. I was twelve, and overjoyed at the thought it might be possible to write for my local paper and get paid for it. Until then, I’d spent my rainy holidays composing my own ‘stories’ about fictitious school children and their pets. All through my teens and into university, the dream persisted and every decision I made was with the goal of becoming a writer in mind. I loved words and word play, and conjuring up imagery based on that which flowed from someone else’s pen. Whenever I was immersed in the world of words, it was very difficult to get me to respond to anything else.