... Nine-year-old Boys Usually Turn Ten At

I Started Reading Dickens When I Was About 12, And I Particularly Liked All Of The Orphan Books. I Always Liked Books About Young People Who Are Left On Their Own With The World, And The Four Children's Books I've Written Feature That Very Thing: Children That Are Abandoned By Their Families Or Running Away From Their Families Or Ignored By Their Families And Having To Grow Up Quicker Than They Should, Like David Copperfield - Having To Be The Hero Of Their Own Story.

We All Are [normal]. Their Idea Of Normal Just Happens To Be Different To Some Other People's Idea Of Normal. But This Is The World We Live In. Some People Simply Cannot Accept Something That Is Outside Of Their Experience.

I Think That Books For Young People Should Have Serious And Important Themes, They Shouldn't Be Trivial. So The Books I Write, They Would Be The Kind Of Stories You Would Write In An Adult Novel Only They Just Happen To Feature A Child At The Center Of Them.

It's Not Easy Making A Living As A Writer, And For Many Years I Worked At A Waterstones In Dublin. It Was A Good Environment For An Aspiring Writer, With Lots Of Events And Authors Appearing.

I Don't Buy Into The Idea That An Irish Writer Should Write About Ireland, Or A Gay Writer Should Write About Being Gay. But When I Found The Right Story, I Saw It As An Opportunity To Write About Being A Teenager And Being Gay. Most People, Whether You're Gay Or Straight Or Whatever, Have Experienced That Relationship Where One Person Is Much More Interested Than The Other.