When you're depressed you retreat and you go into a smaller world. This is why Brighton worked well for the story, because it's a smaller world than London.
I have a really vivid imagination and I find it difficult to read scenes of complete graphic violence. That's not to say that graphic violence does not exist. It's just that I find it quite harrowing...
Writing the same kind of material is no guarantee you'll be working from the same ethos so that writers from different fields are just as likely to have an understanding of each other's work as someon...
Being able to read well in public and talk about your work in an engaging fashion is part of most writers' job specification.
If you've been hurt and you've grieved and you've been through the mill, it takes a long time to get over it.
The hard fact is that writing is available to readers because of market factors as much as particular writing talent.
Parts of my 20s and 30s have gone by in a flash but my childhood is with me all the time.
Being a writer is a more difficult job than people imagine.
Crime writers, I've noticed, can be jumpy. They live in a world where there are murderers on the loose and they haven't been caught yet!
I've been obsessed with stories since I was a kid so it's no surprise that I ended up writing for a living.
I was asked the other day in which era I would choose to live. As a historical novelist, it comes up sometimes. As a woman I'd have to say I'd like to live in the future - I want to see where these ce...
I have an ambivalent relationship with Margaret Thatcher. She came to power in May 1979 - a month before my 11th birthday. I was far too young to have developed a great deal of political awareness. I...
Most people do a good deal of whatever they do motivated by love. For me, few stories are truly complete without it.
The new contract between writers and readers is one I'm prepared to sign up to. I've met some fascinating people at events and online. Down with the isolation of writers I say! And long live Twitter.
Living in Edinburgh, I consider myself particularly lucky - we have the biggest book festival in the world, a plethora of fascinating libraries and museums, and some of the greatest architecture in Eu...
Writers are a product of where we come from but by looking at alternatives to the culture in which we live, we can find ways to change and hopefully improve it.
There are as many different kinds of books as there are writers - as many different responses as there are readers.
An important part of deciding where we want to go, as a society and culture, is knowing where we have come from, and indeed, how far we have come.
Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.
I realised early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job.