“One Minus One’”and “Barcelona, 1975” are more or less autobiographical.

When a book comes from the publisher and you see it for the first time... Of course it's not remotely like seeing a baby for the first time, but I can remember with each book what room I was in when I opened it. That would be excitement, though, I think. Not pride.

The problem is once you've written the opening paragraph and worked out how the rest of the story will go in your head, there's nothing in it for you. I write in longhand using disposable fountain pens on the right-hand side of the notebook for the first draft, then I rewrite some of the sentences and paragraphs on the left-hand side.

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women.

It is important to find a publisher and equally important not to be noticed until your third or fourth book.

John McGovern taught me that it's OK to write repeatedly about the same things.

If you have to read to cheer yourself up, read biographies of writers who went insane.