(although anyone with half a brain must surely be mired in existential gloom all the time)

I spent four years doing a doctorate in postmodern American literature. I can recognize it when I see it.

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.

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

She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.

The great thing about writing compared to life is getting to tie things up.

Perhaps we are on an insula ex machina, an artificial place not in the real world at all -- a backdrop for the stories we must tell.