Last week in the UK, in the county of Devon on the south-west coast, a single name echoed on the breeze: ‘Flaviu’. The county’s attention – and, indeed, that of the wider country – was captured by the news that Flaviu the Carpathian lynx was loose somewhere among the population.

Dartmoor Zoological Park is no stranger to media attention: it is the zoo on which the popular movie We Bought a Zoo, starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, is based. Last week, the media were drawn like moths to a flame to the announcement that Flaviu the lynx had escaped his enclosure by chewing through a board, and was now at large in the area.

Despite the fact that the zoo staff were confident the animal was on nearby farmland, all kinds of sightings farther afield were reported. For example, the Plymouth Herald reported that a distraught driver had called staff at the zoo claiming to have run over the missing lynx with her car. The zoo owner said:

‘We tried to reassure her that it was very unlikely. We were still collecting sightings at this point and we were a bit alarmed that apparently someone had seen a lynx as far away as Saltash.

‘We were thinking these ‘sightings’ could get really out of hand so we started to discount the more far-fetched ones, including this one from the driver…’

Quite simply, the idea of a wild, dangerous animal loose in the county stirred imaginations. How wonderful, I thought, reading the stories. No doubt it was distressing for the motorist who thought she had killed the lynx (but presumably killed some other animal), but as a general phenomenon, this stirring of imagination is surely a positive demonstration of the magic of the mind.

Albert Einstein said, ‘Imagination… is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.’ The field of psychology has long accepted that imagination – ‘the ability to form new images and sensations in the mind that are not perceived through senses’ – is an essential and healthy aspect of the human condition. Imagination fosters creativity, problem solving, cognitive processing and, essentially, empathy with others.

How, as humans, do we develop the ability to imagine? Through listening to stories at a young age and then, when we are able, reading them. The more you imagine, the better you think, feel, behave, achieve: what better reason to read and read and read!

Allow me to revisit for a moment the definition of imagination: ‘the ability to form new images and sensations in the mind that are not perceived through senses’. Thus, when we read fiction we are seeking actively to form new images and sensations in the mind that are not perceived through senses. As a writer, I always have this in mind when I am storytelling: I endeavour to really transport my readers into the story by providing all manner of sensory-rich detail that they can use to imagine vividly.

Take, for example, this description of the gypsy camp in Masquerade:

As he made his way through the gypsy camp, he watched the dark clouds drift towards the large shining moon as if intent on devouring it whole. So vibrant by day, the camp was now bleached of colour in the pale light. The fires were almost out, copper pots lay discarded and some caravans and makeshift improvised tents glowed from the lamps inside. The place smelt of burnt wood and petrol. A few figures were huddled round the dying embers, murmuring to one another, and some were passed out next to the dogs on the ground. The sound of a donkey braying somewhere was replaced with the harsh miaow of squabbling cats.

Can you picture the scene, in the pale moonlight? Can you smell the wood and petrol, hear the men murmuring and the cats miaowing?

If you can, then you are imagining; and what is most powerful about imagination is this, as evoked by the great Pablo Picasso: ‘Everything you can imagine is real’. The lynx was real to all who ‘saw’ it in Devon. My characters can be real to those who read my novels.

If you open your mind when you read a story, it is no longer a story but a real world into which you can step. Such adventures at your fingertips when you read books!