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I'm always interested in storytelling and whatever form that comes in.

Each story we approach in the same way, with curiosity and interest and determination to get behind the image.

Storytelling is storytelling. Good stories need compelling characters and interesting conflicts. That's the bottom line no matter what medium you're writing for.

I grew up in Sierra Leone, in a small village where as a boy my imagination was sparked by the oral tradition of storytelling. At a very young age I learned the importance of telling stories - I saw that stories are the most potent way of seeing anything we encounter in our lives, and how we can deal with living.

Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.

Whenever I write, I try and approach my stories from some kind of universal theme or idea or emotion.

I think I'm still chewing on my years as a foreign correspondent. I found myself covering catastrophes - war, uprising, famine, refugee crises - and witnessing how people were affected by dire situations. When I find a story from the past, I bring some of those lessons to bear on the narrative.

I've always thought abstractly - through theme and variations rather than narrative.

The thing that always interests me from a storytelling point of view is how that moment of trauma, whatever the trauma is, even divorce, your dog dies, whatever it is, the consequence, in terms of people's emotional lives and the way it resonates behaviorally for a long time, is really the stuff that interests me.

I like storytelling, and I feel more confident as the years have gone on about my ability to do that.