I find it inspiring to actively choose which traditions to celebrate and also come up with new ideas for traditions of my own.

For me, writing stories set, well, wherever they're best set, is a form of cultural curiosity that is uniquely Scottish - we're famous for travelling in search of adventure.

Research material can turn up anywhere - in a dusty old letter in an archive, a journal or some old photographs you find in a charity shop.

I had loved poetry and the theatre. Now I loved adventure more.

She wishes her grandmother had not been so protective, and that she understood better what passes between a man and woman. As it is, she simply enjoys the feelings and wonders if they are what lightning is made of, for everything comes back to the weather. Tears like rain. Smiles like the sun. Hair as dry as sand and fear like the dark ocean.

Researching books gets you into nothing but trouble.

History is full of blank spaces, but good stories, invariably, are not.