I come from a big family of storytellers and, growing up, I liked hearing about the years before I was born.

One thing that's always helped quell my writerly anxieties is seeking out interviews with writers I admire.

The stories I love the most are where the author has a lot of empathy for everyone. The author loves their characters and takes their situations really seriously, and you feel like you're just dropped into a different world.

I love being in the archives, traveling, sitting in dusty places and looking at books with brittle pages. I love reading biographies and researching, to make myself informed about whatever political or historical time I'm writing about. From there, a lot of the emotional truths about my characters emerge.

My dad's from Barbados, but I lived with my mum. She brought me up; my uncle took me to the football. I grew up in a white family, I'd say.

I wish I had been home more when the children were growing up. I missed a lot.

Many people don't have relationships to their siblings in adulthood, or they have superficial ones. It's sort of unfashionable, particularly in America, to be close to your family.

If two very different people pool their DNA, they'll create more genetic variety, and their young will come to the job of parenting with a wider array of skills.