In the 'Garnethill' trilogy, people always forget that Maureen O'Donnell's dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law, but no-one ever thinks they're middle-class - they're just working class because they speak with accents.

Novelisation doesn't imply the truth. Readers are sophisticated enough to know that.

None of us know what is going to sell or what people want to read.

In my heart Im just a lucky waitress.

I have two children. They are more fun than anything in the world, and it's more immediate fun than the hard slog of writing.

I love Mikhail Bulgakov. He is very original and takes the story to unexpected places. I didn't realise political writing could be so funny.

We don't really go in for big family dinners, but Scottish people are famously confrontational. It's a cultural thing, so maybe we don't need to have them to clear the air. Also, traditional family food isn't as nice here so there's no payoff for traveling hundreds of miles.