I'm spectacularly disorganised. I wrote my latest book in seven different notebooks scattered throughout my house.

I am surrounded by counselors. My sister is a counselor. My daughter is training to be a counselor. A lot of my friends are counselors.

Barry Kent's father looks like a big ape and has got more hair on the back of his hands than my father has got on his entire head.

I am from the working class. I am now what I was then. No amount of balsamic vinegar and Prada handbags could make me forget what it was like to be poor.

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.

I have decided to be a poet. My father said there isn't a suitable career structure for poets and no pensions and other boring things, but I am quite decided.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.