Since I can remember I’ve been a dreamer. It didn’t need much to fire my imagination. A glimpse through the window was enough to get me lost in daydreams. Already my elementary school teacher complained that I was distracted too easily. I looked up to the clouds, watched the birds on the twigs and waited impatiently for the sound of the lunch break. On my way home I frittered away time by putting paper ships in the creek and hoping they would reach the ocean.

I had many wishes: a tree house, my own Mr Nilsson, a horse and real parents. None of these desires were fulfilled. When my foster mother took me with her she was as old as a grandma. She was Victorian, snivelling, often melancholic and god-fearing. I wasn’t the child she had hoped for. So she did everything to keep me out of mischief. Neither the confinements to my room, verbal humiliation, nor physical abuse could prevent me from creating my own world. Everything that was forbidden, I did secretly. I hid the comics and horror novels in the basement or in the attic. Instead of attending choir practice I bought myself a cinema ticket and got high on Godzilla and Hammer horror movies. When I was asked what I wanted as a Christmas or birthday present my answer was always: “Books.” James Kruess, Max Kruse, Astrid Lindgren, Michael Ende, Mark Twain, Enid Blyton, Ottfrie Preussler, Edgar Wallace, Tove Jansson, Hans Christian Andersen, Wilhelm Hauff and Jules Vernes – I read everything I could lay my hands on.

At the age of eight I wrote my first short story. All I can remember is that it was about a hunter, his dog and a lost hat. Three years later I tried to write a novel. I didn’t manage to write more than 30 pages. That wasn’t due to a lack of ambition but ideas. Maybe the true reason was that my plans for the future changed every few months. One time I wanted to be a stockman, a missionary or a priest, the next time I wanted to be a nursery teacher. As soon as I reached my teens I had just one career aspiration: actor. Indeed I had enough talent to play small roles at our small town theatre and leading roles in school productions. Even when my hormones had calmed down I was onstage or in front of a camera every now and than.

Not till the age of 29, after I had dropped out of two degree programmes, after jobs at the production line, in the geriatric care and in a supermarket, I remembered what my first ambition had been: writing.

Sometimes a blow of fate lets you either lapse into coma or wake you up. Within a year four of my best friends died - three from Aids, one from a heart attack. During this time of loneliness and almost unbearable pain I understood how precious life is and how we stop appreciating it if we postpone what is dear to us. We have only the moment to achieve happiness. There is no guarantee for a tomorrow. With this awareness I sat down and started writing my first novel Santa Adele.