Something About Myself - by Lucy McCarraher, author "The Book of Balanced Living", "Blood and Water," "Kindred Spirits"

Hello. Welcome to my website. I'm Lucy McCarraher, author of a novel called Blood and Water that's been published by Macmillan New Writing (September 2006). So I'm a writer. And I'm a few other things as well.

I'm married (for the second time); and I'm a mum, four times over. My eldest son, James, is 25 and a policy consultant; his brother Chris, 22, is studying Fine Art at St Martin's College in London. Chris designed my book cover, but he's also a superb and innovative portrait painter. I may be a doting mother, but I'm not the only one to think he's pretty good. As he hasn't got his own website together yet, have a look at his work on the The Art of Chris Page on mine.

My older daughter, Victoria is seven, and my youngest child, Julia, is four. Victoria and Julia were both adopted from Russia when they were 11 and 18 months respectively. Adoption, and intercountry adoption in particular, has become a source of fascination (as well as concern sometimes) for me, so I write about it. Blood and Water is about the search for a birth mother, though not in Russia. If you are interested, check my page on Intercountry Adoption: the process is quite complex and interesting in itself, with lots of bureaucracy in both countries and several visits to Russia required. All parents who have done this become experts; they know more about it than most social worker (unless they have done it too), and there is an informal network of adopters that supports new, would-be parents going through the process in whatever way we can.

I'm 51; 52 this year. It's commonplace to say, "Life begins at…." but for me, a new life really does seem to be opening up in my second half-century. If I ever had one dream that never went away, it was to be a lady novelist, writing at a bay window overlooking fields and countryside. Through a combination of luck and coincidence (plus a little talent, I hope, and a fair amount of persistence), this is what I now spend most of my working time doing. There's more about this on the Becoming a writer page.

I'm a Londoner. Born and bred and lived there all my life other than two years at uni and eight in Australia in my twenties. That is until we moved to rural South Norfolk three years ago. I love London, but now I don't think I ever want to live in the city again.

I'm fascinated by families. Perhaps this is because my father was a genealogist (Anthony Wagner KCVO - he was Garter King of Arms, head of an archaic institution called the College of Arms, during the 60s and 70s; he's one of the men in tights and tabards you can see on films of the Queen's Coronation and Winston Churchill's funeral and designer of many coats of arms during that period) so there's nothing I don't know about my own heritage. And my mother, Dame Gillian Wagner, comes at families from a sociological point of view: she was Chairman of Barnardos for many years, and then of the Thomas Coram Foundation, has served on many other voluntary organisations and headed a government enquiry into Residential Care. She has also written meticulously researched biographies of Dr Barnardo and Thomas Coram, as well as a book about the centuries of British children adopted out overseas, Children of the Empire and The Chocolate Conscience about the Quaker chocolate families of Fry, Cadbury and Rowntree.

In my own family, my husband is adopted, as is his sister; I have two adopted cousins and we have our two little daughters from Russia. We have almost no information about my husband's or daughters' biological backgrounds. With two birth sons from my first marriage, I know about both kinds of family-making.

I'm currently writing a second novel called Kindred Spirits. You can see how I'm getting on with it on my Blogsite. It's about the same family that features in Blood and Water - in this book they move from London to rural South Norfolk (well, what a surprise!). The themes of family, adoption and inheritance, mystery, history and the supernatural continue.

I'm an honorary Australian- or so I like to think. I lived there for eight years in my twenties, finishing my degree in English and Drama, working as a book and magazine editor, television presenter and journalist, while my first husband lectured in drama at the University of Newcastle, NSW, among other things. I still have close friends and lots of links in Sydney, where I try to visit as often as I can.

Back in the UK, I went back to work as a researcher for his independent TV production company, Lifetime Productions, and ended up as Director of Development. I wrote and edited scripts, treatments for new programmes and series. Some of our more interesting productions were the Lovers Guide video series, children's TV series Runaway Bay (which starred Naomie Harris, now famous in Pirates of the Caribbean 2) and Go Wild!, Desmond Morris' Babywatching and a number of the Floyd on…… series.

I'm an expert in Work-Life Balance. I left television soon after I left my first marriage and came across a new area then called Family Friendly Working. I worked as a researcher for academic institutions, various charities, especially Working Families, and EU funded projects and, when the new Labour government made Work-Life Balance one of their Challenge Fund initiatives, ended up as a consultant, management trainer and writer on the subject. There's more info on this on the Work-Life Balance page.