'Much as I enjoy watching the odd medieval fantasy series, I have never sought escapism in books. I grew up with Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, in which he teaches that when faced with long, wavy grass and deep, cold rivers, we can’t go over them, we can’t go under them . . . Oh no! We’ve got to go through them.

​

When I read, I want to see the things that I am going through reflected back at me. Dealing with difficult family dynamics? I will pick up a Maggie O’Farrell novel. Struggling to exist between cultures? I will reach for something by Ocean Vuong.

​

I am also compelled to write within spitting distance of reality, which keeps me in a cycle of inquiry. When I step back to write, I analyze life. When I return to life, I analyze writing. It is not often that I get to meet people who are similarly obsessed – we are reticent creatures, after all – and so this seems a good place to come.

​

Read, write, confess and compare. Let’s talk about writing, in our breaks from writing. Because what else, really, does any writer want to do?'