Joan Scott-Minter is a prize winning writer and teacher. She has always ‘scribbled’ and she co-wrote her first play for a local theatre group in the North East of England. In 1989 she moved from UK to Dubai to teach English where she has published over 250 ‘read aloud’ stories, a creative writing column and a bi-monthly column in a local magazine for children. She wrote the libretto for Esetaye, an African cantata, which received great acclaim when it first performed in 1998 for her school’s 20th anniversary. In 1996/7 she took a year off from teaching to do an MA in Creative Writing at Bath in the UK. Now retired from full-time teaching, and much too busy to take it easy, she lives with her husband and two mad old cats – Baldrick and Mrs Miggins.