In a world without air all you breathe is adventure!

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away.

I was always influenced by language.

The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes.

I can remember being in my pram: children stayed in their prams much longer then than they do now. A big bouncy pram with black covers and a hood with metal clips that could trap your fingers. I was looking up at my sister who was sitting on the pram seat, with her back to me.

I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all.