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This Writing Life

People often ask me about my life as a writer, and what advice I would give to aspiring writers. The articles on this page focus on the writingf life.
* Why I write (Guardian 12 March 2008)
* What was I writing when I was eighteen? And what advice would I give to young people who would like to embark on a writing career? This is a snippet I wrote for Cube magazine in Sheffield, to celebrate 18 years of Off the Shelf, and to encourage local young writers.
* This interview with Benedict Porter of Shanghai City Weekend touches on a lot of writing issues

* Bucher is a German book magazine which interviewed me about my writing

Interview with Bucher Magazine

* I write very few short stories – I find them much more challenging than novels. But this year, I published two.

I contributed a story called The Importance of Having Warm Feet to the Earth-Air-Fire-Water fundraising anthology for Oxfam, one of my favourite charities (and also a major player in my wardrobe). I had such fun reading from it at an Oxfam promotional event last year, and going shopping afterwards.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/applications/blogs/books/?p=2007

I was also a proud contributor to the Amnesty International short story collection called Freedom in celebration of 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You can read about the collection here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/27/authors-donate-stories-human-rights

I’m afraid to read the stories you’ll have to buy the books. They’re both in a very good cause!