As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response.

I sometimes think that what I do as a writer is make a kind of colouring book, where all the lines are there, and then you put in the colour.

Every year, the Giller jury is different. You write the best book you can and throw it out there.

You are only as good as your last book, and so there has to be a book.

I decided there and then to sue the bastards.

An editor is an accomplice, looking in from the outside. That objective view is essential. We don't write in a vacuum, and we don't publish in a vacuum.