Oh, thanks for asking. I’ve been a writer ever since I wrote my first semi-autobiographical story aged 5 (The Girl Who Would Not Go To Bed, absolute banger). I got a Creative Writing degree from UEA (not aged 5, quite a bit later), and then a Masters degree in Creative Writing and Publishing from Kingston. No matter what I’ve done with my life, writing has always rumbled along in the background. I’ve now just tipped over into Level 4*, so you do the Math**. And I’ve just written a novel - hurrah!

*Sometimes known as ‘one’s 40s’.

**s

The madness of life, mainly. The clumsy scramble through it, the comedy in the everyday, the tragedy of being a fallible human. I try to dig into truths, to make a reader nod in recognition. Being alive is joyful, terrible, often ridiculous and frequently mortifying, and I love to crystalise it all in my writing.

A more succinct response to this question would have been ‘The human condition’, but I didn’t want to sound pretentious.

How kind of you to take an interest.

Six kids try to have a normal, fun weekend in a house in Derbyshire in 1996, but are thwarted by the confusing parameters of growing up, relationship dynamics and arbitrary parental rules (remember those?)

As each child navigates the complexities of what it means to be a kid, the weekend gets stranger until a trip to some caves leads to one of them going missing. Realising that grown-ups don’t always have the answers, the other children take matters into their own hands and try to find their friend.

It’s basically a love letter to a 90s’ childhood, whilst acknowledging that some of it was, you know, utterly baffling.

Oh, you are too kind.

I’m currently discussing it with the Universe and keeping fingers crossed that the Universe wants to publish it.*

*If you’re the Universe, please publish my novel thanks bye.

(For ‘Universe’, read ‘literary agent's’.)

Finally, a sensible question.

Cheese and pickle. Specifically, the crap mass-produced cheese and pickle from the bar in Blackpool Tower Ballroom in the 90s.