I can look back at stuff I wrote in my early days and squirm at some of the mistakes I made. But we're all learning every day; we never stop. I just hope people keep on liking what I do. That gives me such a kick.

Photos represent primarily a seductive but deleterious short cut.

I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can’t be like any other author’s really.

Some writers would be kinder than others, I'm sure. Hopefully they might describe my techniques as a mixture of tried and tested formulas - if it aint broke don't fix it - and unexpected twists.

The face of totalitarianism turned out to be a mask - obviously - but the face of Capitalism has no face at all.

As for goals, I don't set myself those anymore. I'm not one of these 'I must have achieved this and that by next year' kind of writers. I take things as they come and find that patience and persistence tend to win out in the end.

The most terrifying thing I can think of is being alone - and I mean utterly alone, like no one else in the world alone - at night. That's the nucleus of the first story in my collection and it's also where the title came from for the book.