In one sense, the stories I read betrayed me. Too few gave me back my mirror image. Fewer still spoke to, or acknowledged, the existence of the problems I faced as a black foster child from a dysfunctional and badly broken home.

In 'Out of the Dark,' I'm talking about my own life. I'm not talking as a character or speaking as a character. I was not as free as when I write fiction.

Originally I had planned to write just a couple of children's books and then, return the focus on adult literature. A funny thing happened along the way - I kept having new ideas, and then I looked up one day, and 30 years had passed!

Something about your life always makes its way into your stories. That's just the nature of the beast.

No matter how much time you spend reading books or following your intuition, you're gonna screw it up. Fifty times. You can't do parenting right.

I remember my daughter coming back from school one day and saying that the teacher had asked anybody whose parents were divorced to put their hands up. I felt angry but also guilty. And you feel sort of terribly responsible in that sort of situation.

My mother was a piano teacher, my father an inventor. He invented the reflective paint they still use on airstrips. They had faith in my ambition, and I think that made all the difference.

The driving force behind 'In Our Time' is that I want an education. I want to know more about science, say, and if I want to know, then other people probably do, too.