Quote

I was inspired to become a writer by horror movies and science fiction.

Genre might certainly increase some of your narrative freedoms, but it also diminishes others. That's the nature of genre.

I love the paranormal, because there, every genre I write can become one beacon for my imagination.

I spent the first part of my career trying to avoid genre because I felt like genre, in some way, was cliche.

I think that what appeals to me in my work is having the opportunity to inhabit different genres and so to reach different audiences.

If you go all the way back, I've always written science-fiction, I've always written fantasy, I've always written horror stories and monster stories, right from the beginning of my career. I've always moved back and forth between the genres. I don't really recognise that there's a significant difference between them in some senses.

I spent years only ever reading horror and then trying to write horror - and deep down, a horror writer is still what I'd love to be. But it wasn't until I started writing crime that things began to work for me.

I had always wanted to be a writer who confused genre boundaries and who was read in multiple contexts.

I don't really consider my work, on the whole, 'fringe' in my own mind; science fiction and fantasy have been pretty solidly in the mainstream for a while.