Their Lost Voices Must Continue To Be

You’re My Best Friend, Shmuel,’ He Said. ‘my Best Friend For Life.

I Enjoy The Research Element. There Are So Many Stories From The Past That Interest Me, That I Want To Learn More About, Just As An Interested Person. And If I'm Going To Learn, If I'm Going To Research, It's Probably Going To Lead Me To Writing A Novel.

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.

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.

With The Adult Ones, I Feel I Need To Get As Deep Inside The Psychology Of A Character As I Can, And That Needs To Be First-person. In The Children's Books, I Feel I Need Some Distance. I Don't Want To Be The Nine-year-old At The Center Of The Story. I Need To Have Some Type Of Narrative Voice.