Born in the North, Mallory Thwaites grew up in the shadow of a notorious local hit man and a chilling serial killer. Crime fiction filled the family bookshelves, alleged crimes blot the family escutcheon. On the spear side, one ancestor was executed for treason. Others merely slaughtered their neighbours. The distaff line could be unruly too, refusing to swear allegiance to the monarch.

Number-crunching graduates of premier league universities can become indecently rich. Mallory’s career has taken a different but so far less lucrative direction, from exhumations in Oxford to filling cream horns. Working for a Government agency on alarmingly confidential data, staff learned to be creative. The investigation of various unnatural deaths and unmentionable afflictions couldn’t be discussed. Victorian censuses became a useful source of day job titles. Mallory Thwaites is married with a son and two daughters.

For seven years, Daniel Jones lived on the edge of an ancient city. Perhaps it wasn’t really ancient or even real. Wanton girls in see through muslin wandered around the streets. So did wicked men in tight white trousers… To this day, Daniel can’t shop in M & S without wondering what lurks beneath the Food Hall. Ancient Romans? Beau Brummel? King Arthur? Ancient curses? Or just the city drains? People were digging things up, all the time.

Then his family moved North (twice). Daniel always wanted to write books. That’s all you need to know. Anything else might not be true, because writers make things up. It’s what they do. Four hundred years on, who was Shakespeare? Nobody seems to know. Perhaps he really was the man from Stratford? Read Daniel’s books. Begin with ‘Skara’. Sooner or later, the story might begin to seem familiar, because, of course, there are no new plots, only new writers, history repeating itself. The man to watch might be Li Bai. Li Bai? You’ll have to read Skara…

Rosamund Ridley was born in Doomington. Nobody chooses their birthplace. Doomington wouldn’t have been on Ridley’s list, or Drumble, or even Milton. Where anybody was born is rarely interesting but seems to be required information. Eden would be a very sound choice for any infant considering where to arrive.* Ridley didn’t manage this herself, but she knows someone who did.

A list of glittering prizes should follow, then literary fame and / or fortune, preferably both, celebrity marriages / affairs, trophy children optional.

For those blessed with none of the above, there are other options. A traumatic childhood used to be de rigeur. People should stop whingeing. Most childhoods are. Babies are tiny, adults enormous. Sadistic nuns, paedo priests, toxic siblings? Too much information… Let other pens dwell on grief and misery isn’t plagiarism and is very good advice.

Ridley prefers to keep a low profile, which is far less painful than being unfriended. Blog is a revolting word, Twitter solicits followers. Writers used to write.

* Eden is, of course, one of the finest places in the world in which to live, work, or go on holiday, by mistake or even on purpose.