SARAH Hall is an author on the verge of the big time with her second novel The Electric Michelangelo.

Being shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker prize has not only put her in line for a £50,000 cheque but could generate thousands of extra sales and a high-profile international reputation - just getting on to the shortlist sold the rights to her first two books in the United States.

But around 14 years ago, she was getting her first taste of professional writing far from the bright lights of literary stardom - as a 16-year-old on work experience at The Westmorland Gazette.

"It was probably my first exposure to a serious job you could do with English. In terms of using language it was the first professional experience I had really," she said.

Miss Hall is in the process of moving into an old miner's cottage near Ullswater to work on her third book. The cottage is owned by The Wordsworth Trust, whom she joined this week as writer-in-residence.

Cumbria has drawn her back after living in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, the US and London.

She said: "Cumbria is the place that I would like to have lay claim to me, to say we have produced her'."

However, the ancient county of Westmorland has a place in her heart that comes out in her art, whether it is writing or another medium.

"I like to make things with salvaged materials," she said.

"The last thing I made was a black shadow box with a map of Westmorland, distressed to look old with tea and coffee grounds, and put in with some crockery and glass from the Dun Bull pub, in Mardale."

Her first novel, Haweswater, was set in that village before it was drowned by waters of the reservoir.

Her second novel is the story of Morecambe boy Cyril Parks, born in 1907, who goes on to become a famous tattooist in New York.

The young author reveals she has one beermat-sized tattoo on her back, which she designed herself, but refuses to show me for fear of being ejected from the caf.

"Tattooing is a really symbolic craft," she said. "It's about marking a particular chapter in your life, recording your history. And I think it's about understanding that you are not permanent even though your tattoo is."

Just as the conversation begins to get deep, her mobile phone rings - it is a text message from a Morecambe tattooist she befriended during research for the book.

She tells me it says he put £20 on her at the bookies at ten-to-one to win the Booker prize- so she had better win.

"Threatened by a tattoo artist," she chuckles, but it seems appropriate.

The Man Booker prize 2004 will be announced next Tuesday, October 19.