BBC7

Michelle Paver was born in Africa but grew up in Wimbledon . She wrote her first story when she was five. It was an adventure story about an escaped Tyrannosaurus and a rabbit called Hamish.

When she was young, Michelle read everything she could lay her hands on. She says that she was a lonely, unlovely and generally miserable child which was pretty useful when she started writing novels. For example, the character of Modge in A Place in the Hills is a desperately unhappy teenager.

The first book Michelle remembers looking at was a big picture book about Stone Age people.

Two of the first books she actually read were Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson, and a terrifically exciting adventure about a horse, called The Sagebrush Sorrel . She's still got all three books.

When she starts to write a story, she scribbles the first version of each chapter on a pad with a rollerball pen, but it's such a scrawl that she can only read it while it's still fresh in her mind, so I try to type it up the same day.

Michelle's books include:

• Wolf Brother
• Spirit Walker