When I was growing up in the 1950s, sweaters were a huge thing.

The protests against Harry Potter follow a tradition that has been growing since the early 1980s and often leaves school principals trembling with fear that is then passed down to teachers and librarians.

I was always a storyteller. I just didn't know it. I never shared the stories I made up inside my head when I was growing up. I never wrote them down, either. But I can't remember a time when they weren't there.

When I was growing up, I dreamed about becoming a cowgirl, a detective, a spy, a great actress, or a ballerina. Not a dentist, like my father, or a homemaker, like my mother - and certainly not a writer, although I always loved to read.

I wouldn't say I have comedy chops. I guess you get lucky with good writing because I don't think I'm a comedian by any stretch of the imagination.

Imagination - that's the future for us.

Meeting Australian mountaineer and author Tim Macartney-Snape when I was 16 in 1994 had a big impact on me. His ascent of Everest from sea to summit captured my imagination.

You care enough, that you want your life to be fulfilled in a living way, not in a painting way, not in a writing way... you really do want it to be involving in living, corresponding with other living objects, moving, changing, that kind of thing.