Increasingly, those who used to teach and write critical or theoretical texts are writing fiction, poetry and so on; and kinds of texts are being produced that call for budding readers rather different from those who studied literature in the past.

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.

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 was particularly drawn to Berlin because of its literal, concrete division. Two halves making a whole, or two entities that were altered doubles of each other? Twins that had been separated and kept in neighbouring houses and raised according to different sets of rules as a social experiment? It was irresistible as a metaphor for division in the mind, for a split personality.

I am interested in power and in the idea of one country exerting power over another. The Soviets took this to an extreme.

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

I only like naturalistic stories. I love short, fantastic stories that cast a spell over the reader, that transport you instantly to another place with another set of rules, somewhere imagined by someone else.