‘You need to have a process. You need to know what it is and be ready to change or refine it in the light of experience. That’s one of the big differences between being a professional and a dilettante.’

‘Our job as creative writers isn’t necessarily to capture 50 years of research in a ‘teaching moment’, but to evoke the senses of place and perspective and to ask questions.’

‘Speculative fiction, like all literature, doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and writers in 2026 are going to incorporate the music we listen to, the technology we use, the films we watch, the global affairs that concern us, into the stories we write, just as writers in 1926 did—which, along with stylistic experimentation, keeps the genre alive.’

‘In order to write realistic, compelling characters, you need to first and foremost be fascinated by people… the way they talk, dress, move, behave, react. I love to write in cafés and on public transport, because it’s amazing what you pick up on when you’re actively engaging with the world around you.’

‘I love speculative fiction the same way I love all fiction – for the joy of being free to let my imagination roam and to see possible new worlds and ways of being. Science fiction is joyfully mind-bending, horror awakens a deep emotional response, and I love the feeling of breathtaking limitlessness in fantasy, either that which takes place in secondary worlds or which makes one or two key changes in my own.’

‘I see my non-fiction work as often being more advocacy-driven, often motivated by increasing understanding of particular issues or experiences, or trying to connect people through common experiences.’

‘It used to be that our biggest romance authors were huge overseas but not so much here, but I think audiences are changing and that will force publishing to change. The next thing I’d like to see changed is some of the snobbery that can follow commercial genres!’

‘This isn’t about clouds parting to beam in words channelled by angelic beings… so much as the process of story-making becoming magnetic and natural. One of the most gratifying elements of writing is getting out of the way of ourselves, to discover what we didn’t know we knew. This happens when we write words and ideas that we might not have believed ourselves consciously capable of constructing.’

‘Our labour as writers, as storytellers, is so crucial now, more than ever, because we need to reimagine possibilities for our world and for ourselves. We also need to reimagine the past, the stories that have been erased. We need to make meaning afresh out of the ‘rag and bone’ conditions we are negotiating together on our fragile planet.’