Oddly my name has been no professional help at all! It seems to have made no difference. I admire him hugely, both for his benevolence and his enormous psychological perception.

I always love writing about children.

You can change yourself and you can change the situation but you absolutely cannot change other people. Only they can do that.

I am often criticised for being rather accessible.

I'm actually rather orderly, although the way that I write is not.

I'm no lyrical stylist, you wouldn't pick me for a perfect sentence, and I certainly wouldn't describe my novels as intellectual.

My view of an excellent novel was probably set in the golden age of fiction in the 19th century: narrative, character and voice are of equal importance.