The type of stories I write are about young people grappling with the biggest problems in their lives, often problems that are bigger than they're actually capable of solving.

I like to write stories where young people have a strong feeling about something being fair or unfair, right or wrong, cruel or kind, and they act on the basis of that - often in the face of the prevailing limits of behaviour.

With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.

At around nine or 10 years of age, young people start to decide for themselves what's moral or not, and that's why I like writing for that age group so much.

Although my stories are all very different on the surface, I like to write stories about characters struggling with big problems. I'm always reminded, no matter how different from me one of my characters is from me on the surface, how we're all pretty much the same underneath.

I write about true-life type things.