Writing children's books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive.
The poets whom I knew then were all men and all seemed dauntingly sure of themselves - although I am sure that really they were as uncertain as I was.
My first collection of poems was published by Bloodaxe Books, which was then a very new imprint.
Mourning Ruby is not a flat landscape: it is more like a box with pictures painted on every face. And each face is also a door which opens, I hope, to take the reader deep into the book.
Those who try to obliterate the past are injuring the present.
I was always influenced by language.
I concentrate on the lives of individuals whom the reader comes to know and feel with intimately.
I can remember being in my pram: children stayed in their prams much longer then than they do now. A big bouncy pram with black covers and a hood with metal clips that could trap your fingers. I was looking up at my sister who was sitting on the pram seat, with her back to me.
However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.
However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.
A novel, in the end, is a container, a shape which you are trying to pour your story into.
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