I try to get back to Australia as much as possible.

Kids are really cruel.

I was so dorky up until I was about 14 or 15 and started to get a little bit cooler, but I was a socks and sandals girl. I would wear big frilly socks with sandals and all the kids would tease me.

I had the best of both worlds when I was a kid. I'd spend a quiet week with my mum, then I'd go to my dad's property in the Adelaide Hills, where there were all these kids and animals running around.

Writing is incidental to my primary objective, which is spinning a good yarn. I view myself as a storyteller more than a writer. The story - and hence the extensive research that goes into each one of my books - is much more important than the words that I use to narrate it.

Most of the best writing, the most creative writing, the most interesting, the most out-of-the-box kind of stuff, is being done on cable, you know, and on the computer. I mean, whatever it is, Amazon or Netflix or something. Because they're just willing to take chances, you know, and there's a market for it.

We are incapable of leaving anything to the imagination and loath to leave anything out. Maniacal thoroughness has become our national verbal ideal.

I came up with a lot of characters when I was growing up that were just creative outlets, and then, at one point, I came across Gus Dapperton in the back of my head when I was making music.