Where am I now? New Zealand? Excellent – I’ve always wanted to go to New Zealand. People tell me it’s a lot like Scotland, but with nicer weather. That sounds very tempting, what with the rain battering against my window as I write this.

Still, that’s the type of weather we horror authors enjoy. You can’t beat a good thunderstorm, and if lightning happens to split the sky at a dramatic moment, then all the better.

I’ve forgotten to introduce myself, haven’t I? I’m always doing that. Sorry. I’m Barry Hutchison, author of the horror series, Invisible Fiends, a six-book horror series about a boy whose childhood imaginary friend comes back to life to try to kill him. All six stories are packed with scares, thrills, violence and – I hope – a few laughs, too.

The first book in the series, Mr Mumbles, just won the Royal Mail Award for Children’s Books here in Scotland, which was very nice. As part of the prize I got stamps with my big, balloon-like face on them. I’m going to stick them on letters to people I don’t like. Either that or wait a few years and sell them on eBay. I haven’t quite decided yet.

Since I’m here, I thought I’d tell you about where the idea for the Invisible Fiends series came from. It came from my sister. Well, more accurately, it came from my sister’s imaginary friend.

My sister is eight years older than me, and my mum told me once that my sis had an invisible friend when she was younger. Her friend was a little girl named Caddie (I stole the name for one of the villains in the second Fiends book). Caddie, my sister believed, lived in an air vent in our house. In order to fit her in there, though, every one of Caddie’s bones had been broken, and her face was pressed up against the metal bars. My sister believed that Caddie whispered to her from within the air vent, ordering her to do bad things. So, whenever my sister got in trouble, she’d say that Caddie, the invisible girl in the air vent had told her to do it.

She was mental, my sister.

My mum told me that story when I was twelve years old, but it stuck with me ever since. I thought the idea of this snapped and broken little girl lurking in the dark air vent, whispering instructions was nerve-janglingly creepy, and I knew that someday I’d write a story about it. Twenty years later, I did, and Invisible Fiends is the result.