I don't know, but I do think that everyone has a story to tell. The question is, can they find the voice and the confidence to tell it? We lack the encouragement as young people to believe this; we very often think that writing is for clever people, which it isn't.

There's room for all sorts of magic and miracles in this world - that's what I think.

What's really good is that there are people making stories and writing them and the vast majority never see the light of day and it doesn't matter a fig.

I was brought up, as a lot of kids are, on 'Aesop's Fables,' 'Brothers Grimm,' 'La Fontaine,' all those sorts of things. Hans Christian Andersen is a hero of mine.

Wherever my story takes me, however dark and difficult the theme, there is always some hope and redemption, not because readers like happy endings, but because I am an optimist at heart.

Remember to write for yourself, not for a market and give yourself time to develop your own style, your own voice. It takes a lifetime. Enjoy it!

Elephants are my favourite creatures and have been since I was a boy and my mother read Kipling's The Elephant's Child to me. It was loving elephants so much that made we want to write my own story with an elephant at the centre and its bond with a child.