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I have always been a pretty big fan of ghost stories.

Throughout my teenage years, I read 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens every December. It was a story that never failed to excite me, for as well as being a Dickens enthusiast, I have always loved ghost stories.

I loved all ghost stories. So I guess it was only a matter of time before I wrote one.

I've wanted to write a ghost story for years, and my main aim was to write the most frightening ghost story that I could think of.

I love ghost stories but kind of left them alone after my teens and came back to it after playing Heathcliff in 'Wuthering Heights' on the radio.

As a child I loved ghost stories.

Most traditional ghost stories feature rather hapless protagonists, who have nasty things happen to them.

I wrote ghost stories because I'd always enjoyed reading them, and they seemed to be fizzling out... I don't take them terribly seriously. It's like a cake, with ingredients.

Why a ghost story? Well, I love them. They're fun to read - and, yes, fun to write.

I think the few writers who influenced me most in writing short stories are Alice Munro and Grace Paley. They're very different, and I can't do what they do, but reading them gives me hope that I'll learn something from them.