Since my early twenties, after finishing my Master’s degrees in Hungarian and Spanish language and literature, I have been working in education and the book business. I started as a literary translator and a high school teacher of language and literature. After a decade I moved to a sailing boat to the Mediterranean and I started to focus on translating fiction and setting up a magazine to promote Hungarian literature abroad. I organised several book fairs and networked with many publishers. For my work, I got a Ministerial Award in Hungary.

In my late thirties, I wanted to learn more about feminism and went back to school. I did my third Master’s degree in Critical Gender Studies at an American university. I was working my way up in the academic world and I earned a fellowship to do a PhD. The next morning, I woke up, and I knew I was betraying the little girl I had been.

I always wanted to be a writer but had no self-esteem to do it. I thought I had nothing interesting to contribute and that all stories had been told. However, at age 7, I promised myself that I will finish a book by the time I am 40.

I had only six months left when I rejected the three-year doctoral fellowship and started to write. I finished my first book on women and sailing ten days before my 40th birthday and I never looked back.

I was published straight away and I started my crime fiction series the next year. I am working on my fifth novel now and I’ve never been happier.

I love teaching creative writing and I love sharing my journey with my students. I understand that many of us are coming from self-doubt and uncertainty. I am especially good at showing people that we all have a creative brain that can be developed and that most of the craft of writing can be learned. I love holding the hand of beginners who need support to finish their first project.

My mother tongue is Hungarian and I have bilingual levels of English and Spanish. I speak other languages as well. Therefore, I have a very wide view of how to use the richness of the language and how to tackle its limitations.

As well as writing I do a lot of structural and developmental editing which is closely related to mentoring work. I mentor fiction and non-fiction writers. Many of my students’ books have been published by traditional publishing houses in Hungary.

My literary translations, more than 30 books now, have been published in three languages. My books are available in Hungarian, and I self-translated and self-published my first crime fiction in English. Women in translation form less than one per cent of the UK book market. Why is that and how to fight it? That is another story…