Alan Garner

My mother read nursery rhymes to me, and my grandmother told me folk stories, but as a child I had no interest in writing whatsoever.

I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.

My feeling is that writing is, for me, a pathological condition. That could sound like a mystical experience, and it may be a mystical experience, but I have learnt just to go with it.

My background is deep and set in deep time, and in a narrow space, oral traditions going back a long, long time, which I inherited by osmosis.

My attitude is that if anybody of any age wants to read a book, let them, but I do think that no child would want to read 'Boneland.'