When twenty-four-year-old Emma Smith arrived in Paris in the summer of 1948, her debut book, The Maidens’ Trip, was about to hit shelves, and she was working on what would be her 1949 novel, The Far Cry. As chronicled in Anne Sebba’s excellent Les Parisiennes, Emma escaped the stifling heat of her cheap Left Bank hotel room by taking her typewriter to Square du Vert-Galant (at the western tip of Île de la Cité), where she sat riverside on the cool flagstones, tapping out words all day long.

One day, the photographer Robert Doisneau was wandering by, snapping images for Paris Match magazine. His photograph of an engrossed Emma, barefoot and breezily dressed, typewriter perched on lap, has to this day been the poster child for Paris as a writer’s city.

It took me a while to get my act together to sit down and make a serious attempt at writing fiction, but I always knew there would be no wavering about the genre.

I read many kinds of books – thrillers, cosy crimes, rom-coms, classics, non-fiction, biography, memoir … – but historical fiction has had a special place in my heart since the days when my grandmother and I used to sit side by side, inhaling the latest Philippa Gregory (along with copious amounts of wine and cheese).

I mentioned earlier that I work at a little desk in my attic … and voilà! This spot right here is probably my happiest of all happy places (next to Paris, that is). I regularly redecorate this nook – depending on the latest trinkets I’ve come across in my travels – but right now, these are my ten desk essentials..

I worked in women's magazines for over twenty years. Some of those lessons have gone the way of the magazines themselves - but others are proving surprisingly useful when it comes to writing fiction.