I'm interested in politics, what's going on in the world, how people behave and how your life is often in the hands of other people.

I'm writing a novel about two actresses who go to New York, because that's what I know about. One has lost touch with reality, disappears and is picked up by a man.

I can talk myself so much into my part.

Jane Austen was an extraordinary woman; to actually be able to survive as a novelist in those days - unmarried - was just unheard of.

I do find it therapeutic, writing about stuff that was frightening and painful as a child, and managing to see it from an adult's point of view. To get it out of the closet onto paper, metaphorically speaking, is therapeutic.

There is this idea that appealing to youth is the only way forward. But that is no longer the case. Youth is not everything. Now we have all the baby-boomers in their 60s, like me, who are actively engaged in life - we're not retiring, we're not just being put out to grass once we hit 60.

There were all us baby boomers who had a grammar school education, started to learn, then went on the pill, the whole thing, and so there are today a lot more women writers, editors, producers, and so a lot more women's stories. God, the BBC's practically run by women.