Why did you decide to be a writer?
I don’t think I really ever decided to be a writer. It’s a bit of cliché, but I’ve always written, since I was a child. I wrote my first ‘book’ when I was about seven. It took up twelve pages of my maths book and was called Dustcart George. It had illustrations, too. I was in lots of trouble with the maths teacher, but the English teacher told me it was great. I don’t think it really was, but her encouragement meant everything to me. My story was about a girl who ran away from home. She ran a dustcart (as you do) and had a horse that pulled it called Reg. I had never even seen a horse-drawn dustcart in real life, so I have no idea why I thought this was a good job or even possible.