Living in Italy meant growing up without MTV.

I was married for like seven, eight years. And then coming out of that I was like, 'Okay, now what? I guess I would like to date? That's a reasonable thing. I'm allowed to have that!'

I want to write songs, and I would like to play and sing them. I'm not a politician; I'm not a comedian. I hate coming up with bits to do between songs.

Growing up, I never had a role model to show me that you can be trans and live a happy life. I hope that I can be that source of hope for someone out there who's struggling.

While working on my first five books, I kept wishing I was writing a novel. I thought until you wrote a novel, you weren't taken seriously as a writer. It used to trouble me a lot, but nothing troubles me now, and besides, there has been a change. I think short stories are taken more seriously now than they were.

The image of Stephen Hawking - who has died aged 76 - in his motorised wheelchair, with head contorted slightly to one side and hands crossed over to work the controls, caught the public imagination as a true symbol of the triumph of mind over matter.

I think if more people actually pursued what they loved, we'd have a lot more innovation and creativity.

As far as I have been able to understand, the Japanese seem to keep things close to the vest. Friendly but remote and polite to the point of being invisible. It is in the music, literature, film and art that the Japanese really seem to express themselves.