Get up from your desk and wander outside occasionally. To be a good writer one needs to be a good observer, and there isn't a lot to be observed at desk level.

Readers re-create any story to suit their own needs. They re-clothe the story in their own shirts. Put simply: just as we write the story we need to write, they read the story they need to read.

Take a step, breathe in the world, give it out again in story, poem, song, art.

Language helps develp life as surely as it reflects life. It is a most important part of our human condition.

Sometimes living takes more courage than dying.

Childrens books change lives. Stories pour into the hearts of children and help make them what they become.

Folklore is the perfect second skin. From under its hide, we can see all the shimmering, shadowy uncertainties of the world.