yn Gardner is the author of Olivia's First Term and the other Olivia books. She was born in London and now lives near Richmond Park with her partner and two daughters. A theatre critic on The Guardian, she goes to the theatre five or six nights a week, which should leave no time for writing books at all. Before she bacame a journalist, Lyn was a tea lady, a waitress and sold advertising space for a magazine called Sludge. Her ambitions are to learn to tap dance and walk the high wire, but it may have to be the low wire as she is a bit scared of heights.