My mother was wonderfully out about her dementia. She would sort of - she would say to me, I came out to the window cleaner about having dementia. You know, I love the way that verb for coming out of the closet has now become so socially useful for all sorts of situations, like when you need to explain to the window cleaner that you don't know if you paid him or not.

The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.

I think about Old Nick carrying me into the truck, I'm dizzy like I'm going to fall down. "Scared is what you're feeling," says Ma, "but brave is what you're doing." "Huh?" "Scaredybrave." "Scave." Word sandwiches always make her laugh but I wasn't being funny.

Actually,the nightmarish thought occurred to me that with electronic delivery of books becoming a norm, soon writers may be expected to provide several versions of their book, ranging from the Easy to the Complex, and buyers will choose what they're in the mood for with the click of a button! I do hope not.

Identity politics are wearisome; you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.

Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene.

If you have written something that the film people want, like a book, it does give you a way in.