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Can I have your autobiography in EXACTLY 50 words (not 51, not 49)?
Born Belfast. Brought up in Glasgow. "Interesting" childhood in which reading was refuge. Escaped to London, then Europe. Started scribbling stories in Portugal and realised that writing was missing ingredient in life. Took a long time to write first novel. Took a long time to write second. Now writing third.
Why should people read The Observations and Gillespie and I?
Hopefully, these two novels make the reader laugh and also shiver.
What is your most pressing concern right this minute?
We have had to move out of our home in order to let the builders take over and replace moth-infested carpet with new flooring (and also carry out a number of other long-overdue building jobs). Since I usually work at home - and love my home - this is a double-upheaval for me and I have found it quite difficult, psychologically, to adapt to being turfed out of the nest.
How is being a woman who writes different from being a man who writes?
I’ll never know the true answer to that question. However, at a fundamental level, I suspect that most men who write are taken more seriously than women who write.
Who - in life or writing - do you most admire?
Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Anne Tyler.
Why do we need the Women's Prize for Literature?
So that - one day - people will stop asking this question.
Would you eat a mucky fat sandwich?
I ate bone marrow and a lamb's bollocks last week but I don't think I'd eat a dripping sandwich, no.
What will the next book be about? (does it have a title yet?)
Only a working title which I’m reluctant to share. The novel is based on a true story from the 18th century and is set in the French Antilles (Caribbean).
If you could be anywhere right now, it would be....?
Possibly at La Sagesse in Grenada, drinking Rum Punch and playing cards or reading a wonderful book.
Tell me something I don't know...
A Japanese researcher has recently invented artificial meat based on protein from human excrement.
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