 Edinburgh is my favourite city. We'll be doing a lot of children's theatre and galleries. |
| Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings. |
| Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning. |
| Poetry and prayer are very similar. |
| Between 9am and 3pm is when I work most intensely. |
| I write in that space between Ella's childhood and mine. I know it all sounds a bit sinister. |
| Every day is a gift with a child, no matter what problems you have. |
| I'll be left writing picture books and fairy tales. |
| Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas, and there's no way I'd do anything to undermine that belief. |
| I think the dangers are different now. Our abuse of the planet and our resources is an anxiety. |
| My prose is turgid, it just hasn't got any energy. |
| When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light. |
| I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite. |
| It's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal. |
| I still read Donne, particularly his love poems. |
