Eleanor Catton

In researching 'The Luminaries,' I did read quite a lot of 20th-century crime. My favourites out of that were James M. Cain, Dassiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene and Patricia Highsmith.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.

I was a bit scared because I came from the acting world. There was a fear that people would think of me kind of as a joke. But really, people think of me as a country artist who can act. That's my favorite compliment.