Mal Peet

It was weird - writing is a stupid thing to do. I come up here in the morning to a pleasant room in the roof of my house and imagine I'm a black South American football superstar; then I have to imagine I'm a female pop celebrity who's pregnant. It's a completely mad way to spend your time.

If you were to ask me to pick my favourite author, well, there are so many of them, I'd really just have to say the first names that came to mind, and I'm sure that I'll later think 'Oh, I should have mentioned that one.'

I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.