I dislike the word 'victim.' I dislike being told that I 'lost' my husband - as if I had idly abandoned you by the side of the railway track like an unwanted pair of old shoes.

The kind of response I hope for when I write my novels for children: to give them a chance to recognize something of their own feelings -- about themselves, their parents, their friends -- and their own situation as a kind of subject race, always at the mercy of the adults who mostly run their lives for them.

All writers are liars. They twist events to suit themselves. They make use of their own tragedies to make a better story... They are terrible people.

I like stirring the pot - I think it's part of my duty, to shake people up a bit - make them look at things in a different way.

I am not a victim. I am an angry survivor.

There are many times when I think I would have rather died with my husband. It would have been pleasanter, simpler. But it would have been worse for the children and the family in general.

I grew up on a suburban street with lace curtains and dull neighbours, so I made up stories to tell my friend, in which they became serial killers and burglars. She told her mother, who then told mine.