I'm a scientist by education, a duchess by historical accident and an author who shares writing tips and glimpses of a writer's life, the mundane and the magic.

I was born in a town on the banks of the Danube in a country which no longer exists. When I was ten, I left the country of my birth, never to live there again. I have since lived in five countries on four continents.

I have written and published well over three million words, most about places which never existed before I imagined them into being. One of my novels, The Secrets of Jin-shei, has been published in 13 languages and has touched readers around the world. Once, for example, a young woman talked excitedly about it in a video on her blog. I think she liked it, but since it was in Portuguese.…

I was born on the fifth day of July six years before man walked on the moon, and I'm married to a man who wooed me over the Internet and lured me to America.