Part of the problem of being a feminist is that you feel you have to be actively doing things 
to relieve women’s plight. Actually, feminism is just thinking 
we should have the same rights as men.

I've talked to a few writers who have had childhood illnesses. The sense of convalescence - the feeling that you're waiting to become a real person - is quite an interesting thing. You're seeing all of your friends doing amazing things and you're just there, in a void, feeling a bit stupid. I wouldn't be able to say what I'd have been like without it, but maybe I'd be incredibly high-powered and successful. It also forced me to spend most of my time in my imagination.

Part of the problem of being a feminist is that you feel you have to be actively doing things 
to relieve women’s plight. Actually, feminism is just thinking 
we should have the same rights as men.

It's an easier task to imagine someone's interior world when you feel quite distanced from them. In the same way that I find writing about Australia easier than writing about the UK because I don't have the reality of it in front of me to get me bogged down in trying to be exact.

I have quite a close relationship with violence and horror. They are enjoyable and terrible. I try and offset the horror with a sense of satisfaction or humor. You can't write a book that is entirely dark without having little spots that hopefully make you laugh out loud.

As long as the reader is enjoying a story and the writing, it doesn't concern me if people don't understand why it's running backward or if it's running backward. I think disorientating a reader a bit can be really nice. Making them work and bringing their own past to play in a novel.

And I do pay a lot of attention to how things feel underneath my feet. It's a way of transporting yourself somewhere that you're trying to write about - closing your eyes and imagining what it feels like to literally be in that space. Maybe because of this weird aura thing I find it a bit easier to put my body in an imaginary space.