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I'm interested in the way language is used to navigate the world around us.

Anyone interested in language ends up writing about the sociological issues around it.

For me, the writing process is the same as the reading process. I want to know what happens next.

Reading is probably what leads most writers to writing.

The trick to writing for people is, you have to be able to turn them on in your head. And know how they'd word something or how they'd inflect it.

English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it.

I write what I'm interested in.

I got interested in the question of literacy because writers are always moaning about why more people don't read books.

There is a way in which all writing is connected. In a second language, for example, a workshop can liberate the students' use of the vocabulary they're acquiring.

English is my language because of the history, and what I try to do - and I did that in 'Carpentaria' in particular - is to write in the way we tell stories and in the voice of our own people and our own way of speaking.