Cornelia Funke

They are shooting The Thief Lord in Venice at the moment.

I always thought it hadn't influenced me very much, but I heard from many people from England that many motives from German fairytales are to be found in my books.

Second, there are so many magical places in books that you can't go to, like Hogwarts and Middle Earth, so I wanted to set a story in a place where children can actually go.

I have a naturally camp sensibility and a camp sense of humour. I love the icons that gay people love.

I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.

As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short.