I like canoeing along the Stour and revel in the combination of physical exercise and the natural watery world.

Prisons matter to me because they are important and throughout my 20 years or so working in them I had numerous interesting conversations with people I wouldn't otherwise have met, and I learned about very different lives to my own. Click on the link to Waterside Press who published my non-fiction book Prisons of Promise.

My next novel, working title The Listener, is set in a contemporary prison.

I am a regular at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival because year after year it presents a weekend full of poets reading their marvellous stuff and I always return home itching to read and write. Mind you, I'm bound to say this as I'm on the board of The Poetry Trust. Click on the link of The Poetry Trust.

I love maps because they are beautiful, they open up places and concepts and they fire my imagination.

I like dancing and watching dancers, because dance makes me feel wonderful and different, and if I had my life again I'd probably be a dancer like my mother.

I can't resist wild places, because I like the natural world, remoteness and the elements.

Cycling, mostly in Norfolk and Suffolk, makes me very happy because the landscape is stunning and the air feels good. Click on the link to Countryside Books who have published my cycle route guides On your Bike in Essex, and On Your Bike in Norfolk and Suffolk.