You are dead- what am I speaking to?

There's some that came here never believing they were dead. They insisted all the way that they were alive, it was a mistake, someone would have to pay; made no difference. There's others who longed to be dead when they were alive, poor souls; lives full of pain or misery; killed themselves for a chance of a blessed rest, and found that nothing had changed except for the worse, and this time there was no escape; you can't make yourself alive again.

I was born in Norwich in 1946, and educated in England, Zimbabwe, and Australia, before my family settled in North Wales.

And then what?" said her daemon sleepily. "Build what?" "The Republic of Heaven," said Lyra.

We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair.

When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed.

I wanted the chance to look again at very famous stories and see what made them work well, whether there were any ways in which they could be improved. Because the great thing about fairy tales and folk tales is that there is no authentic text.