Garth Edwards

On leaving university I worked in the chemical industry for many years, a rewarding occupation, although writing was always my main love. At the time I had to support a mortgage, a wife and two small children so the idea of becoming a full time author remained a dream until recently when I took the opportunity to jump ship and start writing for real.

I went back to the stories I told to my children when they were little. I found they loved stories about dragons, wizards, fairies, goblins, giants, talking animals so together we made up a world of fantasy. I showed them how to use the magic words what if?

Here's how it works: One day I was inspecting a turkey farm and was amazed at the hundreds of Christmas turkeys gobbling around the floor of a huge barn. What, I thought, if one of those turkeys was an incredibly intelligent bird and very different from all those other turkeys in the barn. So it was that Wiffen the most intelligent turkey in the world was created and what a preposterous creature he turned out to be. (The Adventures of Titch and Mitch - Shipwrecked.)

What if the huge hedge that ran alongside a holiday home we once rented in Wales was really hiding a mysterious and forbidden land inhabited by strange creatures? This led to an exciting adventure book called Escape from Mercy Hall, which turned into a trilogy.

What if there really was treasure at the end of a rainbow? (The Adventures of Titch and Mitch - The Trolls of Sugar Loaf Wood.)

What if the field mouse we spotted at the end of the garden was really a tiny dragon that could breathe fire? (The Adventures of Titch and Mitch - Shipwrecked.)

And so it goes on.....