Ethics are not necessarily to do with being law-abiding. I am very interested in the moral path, doing the right thing.

I can't imagine what it would be like to write in a relaxed state. I'm going to be writing some stories for my own interest. I want to experiment with different things and see if I can approach writing with much less control and in a better psychological state. It will be like breaking out of a straitjacket.

Alternate history fascinates me, as it fascinates all novelists, because 'What if?' is the big thing.

I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At the award ceremony an agent asked me if I was writing a novel. I showed her four or five chapters of what would become 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and to my surprise she auctioned them off.

Sometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future.

I feel as if I’m waiting for something dreadful to happen, and then I realize it already has.

Feminism is such an incredibly awkward word for us these days, isnt it? Not to be feminist would be bizarre, wouldnt it?