‘We are all used to sitting down at our own desks and fighting the urge to do other things, but in a classroom with ten other people writing beside you there is another energy that can deliver the seeds of new ideas.’

‘Research allows us to write about subjects which we are not already experts in… It allows writing to be imbued with the kinds of details which bring the reader into the worlds we’ve created and make those worlds fascinating.’

The resilience is the container, really, for my vulnerability – the egg carton holding the fragile shells. Inside the shell of my skin, my brain is the white, the yolk my yellow heart, quivering in gooey jelly.