I always have lots of zany ideas for promotional stuff as publication nears.

What the short story needs above all is for one of the big publishers to get an equivalent series up and running and to support it and promote it.

I have no patience with up-themselves authors who complain about having to trail round a few bookshops signing stock.

I was interested in the ways that artists responded to totalitarianism - the Czech Jazz Section, Romanian absurdist theatre, Brecht's alienation effect. The anything-goes, anarchic qualities of jazz and Surrealism seemed to offer a way to cross some of the forbidden frontiers of Eastern Europe.

Who was it recently invented some machine that will enable her to sign a book from 5,000 miles away? Margaret Atwood. Get off your arse, love, and sign it in person. Publishers and circumstance made you a bestselling author. Give a little back.

I've written over 100 short stories. You could say I'm obsessed with short stories.

Belgium is a country with a split personality.