Paddy Salmon

I am a teacher, writer, grandfather who lives in France with Vicki, my wife, in Normandy. I'm half-French by birth but we are now happily both French and British. I love sketching, cooking, reading and telling stories to our lovely grandchildren.

I grew up in England and India, studied English Literature at Cambridge University, and met Vicki at King's College London, when we were training as teachers. I have always loved Lao Tzu's little classic, the Tao Té Ching, which I discovered learning to do the Tai Chi in Cambridge. The book is all about how to deal with change, how to react to our environments and how to find our 'path' in life. The teenage years are full of change, so I imagined Lau Tzu trying to help a young orphaned teenage girl, called Jade Fish, during the very troubled times (a bit like ours!) of the Period of the Warring States, back in about 280 BCE.

I have a beautiful green jade fish (over 2,000 years old) which also helped inspire the series, "Jade Fish and the Master", which grew and grew, as Jade Fish also grew - she has turned 16 in the second book and she is 19 in the third and final volume. The first book came out in France as "Poisson de Jade", but I really wanted to tell the whole story in English, and I have enjoyed doing my own illustrations to go with these books. Will his philosophy help her find her 'way' and how far will this brave, intelligent girl go to help her people and those she loves?