Debi Gliori

Growing up a lonely only child prepared me for the years of solitude spent as a writer; years spent in the company of people who don't exist, imaginary people you have conversations with. It's a paid form of madness, this writing stuff. ”

I'll always write picture books - it's just what I do. I'd even do it if I wasn't being paid. ”

I love my shed. It's my space and my mess - and I know where everything is. ”

Despite the fact the studio looks out of five windows onto a picture perfect view of sky, hills and wide open spaces, I work with my blinds firmly drawn, daylight filtered through their white canvas, a painterly northern light falling through two big skylights above my table, and nothing visible outside to distract me. ”

Books are mind reading devices; they allow us free access to the thoughts and dreams of people we have never met. ”

No ideas are harmed in the making of my books, by the way. All I do with my best ideas is run with them, fast as I can, taking notes and occasionally suggesting a left hand turn rather than the right hand one which might have taken us both over a precipice. ”

I'm afraid there are no magical tips. There is no secret. Writing is all about telling stories as well as you can. ”

For me, stories were brothers, sisters and friends, filling the long hours between childhood and adolescence, holding up a true mirror in which I might find out who I was rather than a distorted reflection of who I was expected to become. ”

I'm ridiculously proud of my children. More so than any of my books. I suspect I wouldn't have written any of them if I hadn't been lucky enough to have this huge family. ”

Books are time machines, transporting us out of our own lives into other times and other places. ”