Pieces of me: Meg Rosoff

Meg Rosoff, author Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

My sisters and me when we were little - about four, five, seven and eight. My grandfather had bought us matching parasols Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

My first passport from 1973. I never felt at home in America, weirdly. I had my first trip to England on an amazing choir tour of Europe. But I got thrown out of the choir for general bad behaviour - a lot of things in my life ended that way Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

This is my great beloved childhood friend. I’ve had it since we were the same size - three feet Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

Pride and Prejudice is the perfect coming-of-age novel Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

My breast cancer pills. The week my first novel came out was the week I found out that I had cancer. My younger sister Debby had died of cancer, which started me writing - the sense of life being short. Cancer focuses your mind. I was bald, sweating from the drugs but happy because I had done what I wanted to do - write Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

My husband Paul gave me this for my 50th birthday - my two dogs standing in water staring at the moon Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

I bought this china horse in an antique shop in Sweden. I have been a horse fanatic since I was a child. They seem to represent potential, purity and power Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

The dog tag, dated 1967, from my first dog. I was 11. My sisters and I were close in age so we didn’t get much attention. I begged for the dog. Her name was Samantha, after the witch in Bewitched, and was my best friend in adolescence Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

This Georg Jensen jewellery is the closest thing I have to a family heirloom. My grandmother gave it to my mother, who gave it to me for my 40th Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

Beneath this glass dome is a map of the Suffolk coast. I fell madly in love with a piece of it. It reminded me of Cape Cod where I’d grown up and my biggest fantasy was that I might have a house there. It was like fate that I found one a year on from the diagnosis of cancer - a gift saying I had survived. I have had the happiest moments of my life in that house Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

This business card from Breakwater Inn resort represents the one happy moment during my 15 years in advertising. I loved Desolation Sound in British Columbia, where we were shooting an ad for Air Canada. Advertising was ludicrously male-dominated, but it taught me to think sideways Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

I moved to London aged 32. I arrived on a Thursday, met the man who would be my husband on the Friday and we moved into a tiny, smelly, chaotic flat. My sweet husband didn’t mind that I smashed these wine jugs; he just glued them back together. They sit on our windowsill Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

I’ve got a whole heap of photo-booth pictures: young, glamorous and moody; with Paul and my daughter Gloria; when I was ill wearing a hat; when I’m older and much less glamorous but happier Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

My daughter is a fantastic travelling companion - she’s totally organised, whereas I’m hopeless. She’s the only girl of nine grandchildren, so there was much rejoicing at her birth Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian