I have had, like most women, a lifelong preoccupation with my weight. My first published short story was a love story between an elderly man and a very young morbidity obese woman.

I have never looked into my sister's eyes. I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the grass at night and raised my arms to the beguiling moon. I’ve never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn a hat. Or been kissed like that. I’ve never driven a car. Or slept through the night. Never a private talk. Or a solo walk. I’ve never climbed a tree. Or faded into a crowd. So many things I’ve never done, but oh, how I’ve been loved. And, if such things were to be, I’d live a thousand lives as me, to be loved so exponentially.

I was in the emergency room twice with heart palpitations and panic attacks. As one of my actor friends pointed out: your body doesn't know that you're making art. You think about struggle and challenge and you imagine yourself weighing 302 pounds and being restricted and in despair. Your body doesn't know that that's not the case.

I hum some secret place into being, thinking of this other me, the one that only I can see, a girl called She, who is not We, a girl who I will never be.

What is it about sadness that can be so fulfilling?

We're seeing a decline in religion in North America but, I hope, a rise in individual spirituality. Whatever that means to people.

Now that I live in Southern California, my current world certainly speaks to me, and I sense that my next book will have a more American and southerly setting. But that's certainly not to say I won't be back to Leaford.