I love putting two things next to each other that don't necessarily belong, because then there's sort of a third atmosphere, a third space that is created depending on who the reader is. Some people will immediately make the links between who's in each section and see exactly what's going on and some people won't. And I don't think that matters at all.

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 think there's over-telling sometimes, in fiction. For instance, I'm a big fan of horror movies, but I could always lose the last third of them. There's the brilliant exciting scary thing that's going on, and then they have to show you the monster, and the monster turns out to be a giant spider from space and then you push it over and it's dead. It becomes mortal and it has human needs and it always sort of feels like a shame. Maybe because of all the cop shows and such, we're a generation that needs to have problems solved for us in fiction.

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.

But I think writing should be a bit of a struggle. We're not writing things that are going to change the world in big ways. We're writing things that might make people think about people a little bit, but we're not that important. I think a lot of writers think we are incredibly important. I don't feel like that about my fiction. I feel like it's quite a selfish thing at heart. I want to tell a story. I want someone to listen to me. And I love that, but I don't think I deserve the moon on a stick because I do that.

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.

I love putting two things next to each other that don't necessarily belong, because then there's sort of a third atmosphere, a third space that is created depending on who the reader is. Some people will immediately make the links between who's in each section and see exactly what's going on and some people won't. And I don't think that matters at all.