Novelist

You wouldn't know it, but I'm no good at recognising people; I have face blindness.

I'm never happy with what I've written. You imagine, before you start, there's a cathedral, and the moment it starts on the page, it's a garden shed. And then you just try to make it the best shed you can.

Our minds and memories are crowded with the common experience of nature.

I don't get distracted until the weight of other things left undone finally tips the balance; my mind is flooded with calls, bills, supermarkets, letters, and I have to stop and sort things out.

If I think about the writers I love or might be influenced by, I can't write at all, so I pretend there aren't any.

I have a study now - I used not to. I also love working in cafes; ignoring noise is good for concentration.

When I was a child, I wanted to raise horses in Wyoming or be a cabin boy on a pirate ship.

Remove all the traffic lights, yellow lines, one-way systems and road markings, and let blissful anarchy prevail. I imagine it would produce a kind of harmony.

I like to come into my workspace and feel it's a living environment and not frozen, which is why I often change or add to the pictures on the wall.

I think if you write about human relationships, you're always exploring the psyche and the soul. I don't separate certain - perhaps more extreme - things that people do from others.

My favourite author as a child and teenager, and who I still re-read now, is K. M. Peyton. She writes very truthfully; sometimes I'm not sure if I've actually done things or just experienced them in her books.

I love writing on trains. The joy of being a writer is it's all in your head; you don't need materials apart from the laptop. It's like taking your work home with you, so you can feel grounded in your own insane writerly realities wherever you are.

My father is from Jamaica, and as a child I spent many holidays there. I remember the weight and drenching wetness of that hot rain, as I experienced it in my childhood, not only for itself, but for what it represented for me.

I don't consciously use my own life or experience at all.

My father was a screenwriter, but he was also a novelist.

Oh, I always think everyone feels left out.

Horses know how to be loyal but still keep their distance.

I don't eat when I'm working. If I start to fridge-raid, I'm in trouble.

I think that we are all much closer to our childhood selves than we often think, so when we read about childhood, it can surprise us how immediate or moving it is, when perhaps those feelings are just there, waiting to be accessed all the time.

In England, rain was thin and cold, and made you hunch up inside your coat, walking home from the bus stop. In Jamaica, it was wide and thick and invited you to step into it, and see how wet you could get, and be thrilled that it was warmer than the sea and warmer than your skin; it was abandon.