Sarah Hall

It's taken me 15 years to feel I might be able to write and publish short stories, and for the assiduous checks of the industry to allow some through.

I wander around the house and write in bed, at the kitchen table, by the window, in the yard.

I used to dislike bookshops immensely as a child and was won over only later in life.

New York is a city where people are ambitious. They want things.

Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.

I always dreamed of writing in an orchestral context. But when you finish a piece, you want to hear it. So we played everything with Phish.