"If you're creating a story, it's a lovely sort of secret thing going on in your head." — Sheila Hancock

I love being in my car with Radio 3 on.

I'm actually involved with DigiSmart, a project to get nine-11-year-olds to love books.

Inventing characters is extraordinary: proper authors say so often that characters 'just appear' and that does happen. These people keep leaping out and saying, why don't you write about me?

Prompting children to create imaginary worlds is hugely important.