Anne Fine

Q: What were you like at school?

Dead shy in primary because I was younger than everyone else. Much more confident in my secondary school.

Q: What did you want to be when you were a child?

Nothing. I honestly think I didn’t truly believe that children really did turn into those grey boring adults.

Q: Which three words describe you best?

Determined, cheerful, untidy.

Q: What is your favourite word?

Galleon. But I also love the word silver and the word frangipani, so it was hard to choose an absolute favourite.

Q: What makes you cringe?

People flaunting their expensive possessions. People spitting in public. I think that is disgusting. Litter left lying all over. People sniffing on trains because they have their headphones on and so don't realise what a noise they're making. (As you can guess, I spend a lot of time cringing. Perhaps it's as well that I stay home so much, writing my books.)

Q: What are you afraid of?

Running out of good books to read - but, mercifully, it never seems to happen.

Q: When did you last have a really good laugh?

This morning, when someone sent a fan letter about Bill’s New Frog.

Q: What is your most treasured possession?

If there was a fire, or a flood, I'd let out my beloved dog LULU and then run for my drawer of photos of my children and grandchildren. And once that was safely pulled out and rescued, I'd probably go back for my two Carnegie medals, my two Whitbread Awards, my two Nibbies, my Smarties and Nasen awards and my Children's Laureate medallion. I'd reckon all the furniture and curtains and stuff could easily be replaced, but those couldn't.

Q: What do you do as a hobby?

I read. And I take my dog for walks. And I do love films. I watch a lot in the cinema, and quite a few more at home. I also like one or two of those television half hour comedies. Some of them, like the Simpsons, are BRILLIANTLY written.

Q: What strange habits do you have?

I bite my nails till they bleed. (That’s not strange in itself, but it’s a little odd for someone my age). I can't recycle any printed matter until I've read it. That's an odd habit. But I have had a huge number of odd ideas for books, and bits of books, from doing it. Even the whole idea for Flour Babies came from a tiny snippet in a magazine about a California school.

Q: What’s your favourite food?

Fish, unless I’m cooking, in which case it’s toasted cheese because that’s quicker and easier. I have occasional cravings for chocolate. My favourite breakfast is crunchy granola, and I make my own in huge quantities.

Q: What do you day dream about?

I never day dream. I always end up doing or reading something instead.

Q: Do you feel younger or older than your current age?

I have felt thirty ever since I was thirty. There’s a poem by Anne Sexton with the line, “In a dream, you are never eighty.”

Q: What quality do you most admire in a person?

Moral courage. And empathy - which means being able to put yourself in someone else's shoes, and think, 'How would s/he feel?' It is a lack of empathy, for example, that leads to bullying and cruelty. I tried to write about that in a comedy called The Angel of Nitshill Road, for 6-10 year olds. (And for older and younger, if you're being bullied!)

Q: What is the most interesting place you have ever visited?

Istanbul. I went when I was twenty, years and years ago. And it was so exotic and different: the spicy smells, the markets, the beautiful strange mosques, the clothes. I had never been anywhere so 'foreign'. I've been to all sorts of places since, but never had such a striking feeling of being in a strange and timeless land.

Q: What is the best advice anyone has ever given you?

“Work out what you like doing most in all the world, and then look round for someone who will pay you to do it.”

Q: What has life taught you?

To know when to knock off and go to bed with a good book. Sometimes enough is enough, and you just need time to gather yourself together quietly and alone.

Q: What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

If I could sing, I would have loved to have been an opera singer. I think that must be the most wonderful job in the world, even though it sounds exhausting, with all the travel, and your work booked years ahead. But to sing for a living? Bliss! Sadly, I can't (as the Americans say) carry a tune in a bag. So that was out. I like driving. If it weren't for global warming, I might like to become a chauffeur. But now I think the people I'd drive should really go by train.

Q: How long have you been a writer?

Since the day in my early twenties when, because of a blizzard, I couldn’t get to the library to change my books, so sat down and began to write one.

Q: Where do you do your writing?

Anywhere, so long as it’s quiet. (I don’t mind industrial banging, or traffic. It’s music and voices I can’t write against.)

Q: What are the best and worst things about being an author?

The best is the silence and the control.

Q: Where do you get your greatest ideas from?

All round. What I see, snippets I read, things I overhear, worries on my mind. Anything and everything. The craft is to get to recognise how you can use it.

Q: What book do you wish you had written?

The Once and Future King (all 4 books of it) by T H White.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Read, read, read. Every book you read will turn you into a better author later. Then sit down and write the book that you yourself would most like to read. (So often, a writer’s first book is their very best).